


Say You Will

by GalaxyWanderer



Series: I Run to You [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Mass Effect AU, Mass Effect Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:36:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyWanderer/pseuds/GalaxyWanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was it mere chance or destiny that brought them together?<br/>This is the story of a cross-species liaison set before the events of the Eden Prime War.</p><p>##Written for a Prompt on ME KinkMEME. ##<br/>Rated for incoming smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gut Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER:** Much to my chagrin, Mass Effect, its characters and elements don't belong to me.

_The first time they met, she was helping C-Sec bust red sand dealers at Shalta Ward._

Shepard was posing as an addicted duct rat. She was so nervous she felt like throwing up and kept thinking about what a stupid idea it had been. She’d never done anything that risky before, not by her own choice, at least – it was a lot different than chancing being seen by the slavers while taking off running towards the Alliance colonial base with hopes of getting help (even though she knew the ten men garrison had already been taken down).

The memory made her shudder and she couldn’t stop the shivering once it began.

Grounding herself in the present, she kept repeating the step-by-step of what she had to do to help solidify the case against the dealers. She had to get her hands on a sample of the product, first. She hated not being able to steel herself enough to hide the trembling of her hands when she met the dealer on his usual spot; luckily for her the shaking just corroborated her impersonation.

She gave the shady man a credit chit and waited while he’d run a check for anomalies. After he gave her the stash she felt a momentary dread that activating her omni-tool to turn on the chit’s built-in tracer would give her away. Shepard held her breath while walking away to leave the alley, with a staged stumbling gait; she only started breathing again at the sight of the C-Sec squad, her contact among them, waiting nearby to put an end to the ruse.

Slipping on what she hoped was a panicked expression, she turned back and started running, shouting for help with a pair of officers hot on her heels. As was expected, the dealer took off without a backwards glance, taking the tracer with him. At the same time her contact within C-Sec tackled her to the ground and cuffed her; as they’d rehearsed.

“Everything in place?” he asked, receiving a single nod in reply before yanking her by the arm. He confiscated the red sand, took her omni-tool, with the tracer code, and tossed her toward another turian she was certain she’d never seen before.

She wasn’t an expert in Turian features, but she would remember seeing one wearing a bright blue visor. “Vakarian, take her to the car and stay with her,” her contact barked.

“Yes, sir,” came the prompt answer. Vakarian got a firm hold of her and led her toward the vehicle, looking all the while scared that she’d try and escape him.

Shepard held back a laugh at the thought. All she wanted was to get back to the precinct, take a shower to get rid of the week old dirt covering her, put some clean clothes on and go back to her room at the orphanage. It’d been a hard long couple of days while they set the trap and she was missing her bed dearly.

Her escort opened the vehicle’s door, guiding her inside and entered sitting beside her.

“I’m starving.” She heaved a sigh and looked at the turian officer’s bright blue eyes. “You wouldn’t happen to have a levo ration bar around here, would you?” she asked him hopefully. He kept quiet, as she knew he would, but got a ration bar from a bag and gave it to her. “Thank you so very much!”

She ate the bar with gusto; it tasted like recycled-food, but she had gone the whole week with only the nutrient paste the homeless shelter served in the evenings. Of course, she knew what she was getting into when she agreed to help with the operation, but it was still difficult.

Closing her eyes, she rested her head on the back of her seat, relaxing for the first time since the ruse started. It was almost over now. C-Sec just had to bust into the dealers’ base and arrest the lot of them. She only had a slight idea of what that would involve, but supposed it would take quite a while.

Now that the risk of making a mistake and being uncovered had passed, Shepard felt the week old tension starting to settle in. The satisfaction of helping out would come later, she was sure, but at the moment all she could think about and feel was how dangerous that whole ordeal had been and how easily she could get involved. She’s been away from the orphanage with no contact from administration for an entire week.

Sure. She got authorization, but something like that would never happen around her parents; then again, she wouldn’t be in such a situation if her parents were still around.

They’d be appalled if she even thought of doing something half as dangerous as that and, not for the first time, that knowledge made her question her decision of joining the Alliance. If she decided to get down that path, the danger would become an occupational hazard. They would never have agreed with it – they might’ve accepted, but never agreed.

As usual, thinking about her parents and Mindoir put a sour taste in her mouth, so she shook her head to dissipate those thoughts; it was too serious a subject for her to focus at with her current limited mind capabilities.

Trying to distract herself, she had to bite back the urge to talk to the turian beside her. She knew the rules: Chellick was her contact and C-Sec officers weren’t supposed to talk to the people they take into custody except during interrogations.

“You should have bought some food.” She jolted up abruptly and blinked the shock away looking intently at the officer. “Instead of wasting money on drugs, you should have bought some food.”

His eyes were fixed on her and she couldn’t help the blush that overcame her at the concern and reproach in his voice. Of course. She must look like the most pitiful thing this officer has ever seen, all covered on dirt and wearing ragged clothes and mismatched shoes; she didn’t even want to think about what her hair might look like, plus, no one other than Chellick knew about her part on the operation; still, it was an odd and rare thing for a turian to care about any human.

She never ceased to be amazed whenever she found a turian who would treat her with any kindness.

_And Chellick's the only one I can think of, really._

“Why are you smiling?” He sounded suspicious; she widened her eyes and felt herself blushing. She hadn’t noticed that a silly grin was plastered on her face until he mentioned it and that made her heart beat a little faster too. “What’s happening? Are you feeling ill?” He looked really distressed and at loss about what to do.

“No, I’m fine.” She looked away, watching him askance. “It’s just… you’re not supposed to talk to me, ‘s all.”

One of his mandibles quivered a bit and he crossed his arms still staring at her. “I won’t tell if you don’t, and it’s better to talk than getting into trouble due to unrest.” She had no idea her earlier distress was so obvious, but didn’t know how to answer to that. “I can do the talking, if you prefer.”  He looked scarily determined.

Then, as he started telling her about how stupid it was to disregard basic needs just to feed an addiction in a stern and patronizing tone, Shepard had to turn her face to the window to hide the grin on her lips. Usually she wouldn’t think of being scolded by something she didn’t actually do as a good thing, but right now the distraction was welcome. So once she was able to school her face back, she chanced glancing back at him letting his voice wash over her.

He talked for a long time, about duty and responsibility and respecting oneself. Every time he stopped, she would make a commentary and he’d start anew. Bit by bit, his presence started to soothe and warm her inside; giving her a sense of security the likes she hadn’t felt in a long time by the simple fact that he seemed to care. The situation was only interrupted when Chellick got back and they headed to HQ.

* * *

 

_The second time they saw each other, he almost didn’t recognise her._

Garrus ached for some real action as he filled out reports about an operation which he hadn’t really taken part in. Drumming his armoured fingers on the tabletop, he stared disheartened at the three datapads, about the same operation, he still had to fill in before he could go home.You don’t just make the transition from two years in the Turian military to a civilian security force wrapped in bureaucracy in the blink of an eye, and the light guard duty he got stuck on earlier that evening had been very frustrating.

 He also couldn’t believe how young that girl looked; he didn’t know Human years very well, but even underneath all that dirt she looked even younger than him. It wasn’t fair that someone would lose their way so early in life and he couldn’t stop trying to figure out how she ended up in that situation.

_How can humans allow children to remain in that condition?_

There was something else bothering him about the girl, too; her eyes were very sharp and, though he could see the distraught on them, they were far too clear for an addict. She hadn’t said much, but the few things she did say were keen and to the point.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong in the picture. Of course, he also couldn’t remark his suspicion on his report without mentioning talking to the detainee.

It also made his plates itch that as soon as they got to the Academy, Chellick took the girl to an interrogation room, completely dismissing him. Then he’d come back two hours later saying the girl had been released. Because apparently the product they apprehended with her (along with the crates of drug and illegal tech they found in the warehouse the gang was holed in) was all the evidence they needed to close the case.

He knew Chellick was operating within C-Sec guidelines: they’d only need to hold the  _dealer’s client_  if they’d found no other evidence of the crime, but they did find it and therefore she was no longer necessary. He didn’t like that, but that’s how it is.

Besides, that feeling might very well be just his imagination. It’d been only two months since he started working with C-Sec and he couldn’t even pretend to have his  _detective senses_  honed yet no matter whose son he was.

_I’d better finish filling these things out or I won’t be able to go home before my next shift starts._

He was just finishing his last form when someone knocked at the door of the cubicle he shared with Chellick.

“Come in.” He looked at the door as it opened to see a red-fringed human girl peek inside. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Officer Chellick,” she said, not looking directly at him.

“He isn’t here at the moment.” For some reason he couldn’t explain his heart started thundering inside his chest and a knot had formed in his throat, making his subharmonics more pronounced. “I think he may have already left.”

“Dammit!” She exhaled heavily looking up and staring timidly at him. His breath faltered for a second as he knew those green eyes. “He was supposed to take me back home and if I don’t show up there in the next hour, I’ll be in trouble.”

“You…” He blinked several times. She was different; her fringe wasn’t all dark and greasy and tousled anymore. Her skin was clean and bright, maybe a little on the pink side, but it was the same girl from the drug busting operation. He was sure of it. “What?”

She seemed to understand exactly what he meant by that, because she looked apprehensively around for a moment before staring back at him. “Can I come in?”

He nodded and she passed through the threshold, letting the door close behind her. “I’m surprised you recognised me,” she said as she sat on the chair on the other side of his desk. “Most turians can’t really tell humans apart.”

“Usually I can’t, either.” He cringed as the words left his mouth.  _Way to make all turians look like xenophobic bastards, Garrus!_  He shook his head and cleared his throat. “It’s just that I’ve been t-thinking about you… ugh, a-about the operation, I mean, and the fact that you looked so young to be involved and… uh, that is…” He stopped talking feeling his neck hot with embarrassment when he noticed she was covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

“I’m sorry,” said she after a while, her face bright with glee. “You don’t need to worry so much, you know.”

“I’m just not used to dealing with aliens,” he shook his head and saw her smile.

“You’re new on C-Sec, aren’t you?” She asked and he confirmed. “It’s not really my place to say this, but:  _welcome_!” She reached out her hand to him. “I’m Jane Shepard, by the way.”

“Garrus Vakarian,” he shook her hand in the human greeting. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Shepard.”

“Just Shepard.” She winked and grinned. “You have a few questions about what happened today, don’t you?”

“To say the least, yes.”

“Tell you what: if you’d give me a ride home, I’ll gladly tell you everything you want to know.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” said he, dryly. Then he looked at the clock and saw that it was half an hour past the end of his shift. He saved a copy of the document he was working on in his omni-tool, turned off his terminal and stood up. “Alright, let’s go.”

“Thank you, Vakarian!,” she said, jumping to her feet and,  _Spirits_ , she looked so young!

“Please, call me Garrus,” he said, wincing a bit. “Vakarian is my father.” Her smile faltered for a heartbeat. It was so fast that he wondered if it really happened.

“All right, Garrus,” she said and followed him in silence to the Academy parking lot.

“Where to?”, he inquired as they settled on his Skycar.

“Shin Akiba, on Zakera,” said she buckling up. “Near the Alliance‘s IAD.”

“That’s on another Ward! You’re a little far from home, aren’t you?”

She shrugged and shifted in the seat. “So, what do you wanna know?”

He thought about that for a moment, there were a lot of things he didn’t understand, so he decided to start with something basic. “How old are you, exactly?”

“I’ll turn eighteen in four months,” said she with an edge of anticipation in her voice.

“It seems like you really want to turn eighteen,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, well,” she rubbed her neck uncomfortably and her eyes shone with determination. “I’ve been counting the days until I’ll be able to enlist ever since I got to the Citadel two years ago.”

“And just why is that?”

“I want to be able to help people.” Her voice had shrunk and he almost couldn’t hear her over the engine’s noise.

Garrus thought the way she looked away and seemed to shrink in herself was curious. For a second, he wanted to prompt her to talk about that, she had offered to answer whatever he wanted to know, after all, but then he thought better of it and decided to change the subject.

He also wasn’t sure what kind of lines he’d be crossing if he decided to press the issue, and preferred not to ruin the first good opportunity to talk to a friendly human he ever had. “How did you end up involved in a C-Sec investigation?”

She looked up at him, her eyes were shinier than before, but she didn’t shed the moisture that he could see there. Instead, she opened a little smile. Garrus smiled internally, happy he made the right decision.

“I volunteered to help after one of the kids I knew had an overdose. I knew Chellick from the self-defence class C-Sec offers to civilians,” her voice had returned to a measured tone. “And as there’s nothing in the C-Sec rulebook saying that civilian help can’t be recruited from time to time, we decided to give this a shot.”

“Hm, interesting approach, but it seems a bit… unconventional…”

“Yeah, not everybody agrees to letting civilians get involved…” She said carefully. “Chellick said that doing this is stretching the regulations to near the breaking point.”

He grinned lazily listening to her explain a few details about what was done and all the security measures taken to ensure the criminals would be convicted. He could easily imagine his father’s opinion over the subject. No wonder he never heard of such operations.

Garrus admired his father greatly, he could easily say he was Fieras Vakarian’s greatest fan growing up; but more recently he found it hard to agree with the old turian’s point of view about procedures, especially when the procedures would work against the law instead of backing it up. It also didn’t help that his father usually brushed his opinion aside, sayingit was ‘just a youngster’s impatience’ and that ‘he’ll eventually learn’.

She stopped talking and turned to him, narrowing her eyes. “I hope you understand this isn’t supposed to be widely known. That could invalidate the whole investigation…”

“Don’t worry, no one will know it from me,” said he, relaxing his mandibles in a sly grin. “But, if it’s not supposed to be spread, then why did you tell me?”

She shrugged. “Because you didn’t need to give me the ration bar, yet you did,” with her eyes glinting she squinted at him. “And you even went as far as breaking protocols to chastise me about the ill-advised use of money and the malefices of doing drugs.” He grunted and she giggled. “I had the feeling you could be trusted and, well, I’m seldom wrong…”

“Is that right?”, he asked, surprised that she seemed willing to trust him so quickly.

“Yes, I’m a very good judge of character and my gut tells me you’re okay.” She beamed him making him laugh softly.

“You’re something else, Shepard,” he said, seeing her sigh and chew on her lower lip.

She seemed preoccupied and something she’d said earlier came back to him.

“Wait, you said you’d been undercover for almost a week, right?”, he stared at her in shock. “Do your parents know what you’ve been up to? Aren’t they worried?”

“Nah,” she shook her head and shrunk her shoulders again. “I’ve got authorization to stay away from the orphanage for about a week.” She grinned at him, but the smile didn’t seem quite natural. “Of course, I haven’t told them what I’d be really doing, but it’s not like they’d check on me anyway.”

“Oh, uh, I suppose it makes sense,” said he just to fill the silence as he rubbed his neck feeling a bit uncomfortable. He hadn’t thought of the possibility of her being an orphan.

“That building there,” she pointed to a simple construction with both the Alliance logo and the Human Embassy blazon stamped on the walls. He parked the car on the other side. “Thanks for bringing me.” She looked at him with a soft smile on her face.

“It was my pleasure,” he watched her open the door and get out. “Good night, Shepard.”

“Good night, Garrus.” She smiled at him before closing the door and turning away. He stayed there counting his own heartbeats until she went past the building’s door. Then he set the car into motion again.


	2. Tinglies in a Silly Place

_The first time Garrus contemplated that thought it sent an unexpected, but not unpleasant, twist in his stomach._

One week. Seven days. That was the time that has passed by since the Red-sand dealers shake down.

And, still, he couldn’t stop thinking about the redhead human girl.

Granted, it was not all the time. And it was not in a way to interfere with his duties, but whenever he had a pause and activities waned he would catch himself thinking of her. It happened so often during the last week that he even stopped being surprised by that.

 _She is an obstinate little thing,_ he’d think and go on from there. Admiring the way she couldn’t stay still and watch injustice prevail after losing a friend to drug usage even if that meant putting herself in danger.

He was probably crazy, but the truth was that the time he spent talking to her, as short as it’d been, was the most relaxing he had ever since coming to the Citadel. The first time he really felt like himself in months.

 _And,_ Spirits _, it felt good!_

He thought it strange that, by human standards, she was still considered a child when by turian years she’d be well into her second Service year by now.

Sometimes, when he thought of her serving in the military, he’d start wondering what her specialisation would be and which would be her weapon of choice and whether or not she’d be any match to him with a sniper rifle.

He wouldn’t think about how she’d fare on hand-to-hand, though. Oh, no! He’d stay away from that line of thought. In fact, that only occurred once, and… well, it had been... _interesting_. It’d also been weird. He couldn’t quite fathom if his reaction had been triggered by memories of some of his personal experiences or by thoughts of sparring with _her_.

It bothered him that he’d never even felt drawn to asari before (although word is that everybody likes asari) and now he was reacting to a human. It seemed particularly... _inappropriate_.

There was also the fact that he was basically _making_ _her_ _up_ and feared he’d been idealizing the girl because he didn’t really know her. But he wanted to. Get to know her, that is. And that thought was a little bit scary sometimes, too. Human-turian animosity was still strong all around the Galaxy; after all, it had only been fourteen years since the First Contact War. Though she seemed friendly enough towards him, he didn’t really know what her thoughts on the matter were and humans were said to be somewhat prudish. Plus, she wanted to join the Alliance and would be leaving in a few months.

He was in the middle of those contemplative waves when the door to the office opened and Chellick came in.

“Still here, Garrus,” the other turian stared at him a bit startled and fluttered his mandibles in a grin. “Are you trying to prove that all Vakarians are workaholics or something?”, he jested, getting a duffel bag from the floor by his table.

“No, I just finished filling out today’s reports, that’s all,” he shrugged watching his partner curiously. “What about you? What are you still doing here?”

“Oh, I’m heading to the gym for the civilian self-defence class,” Chellick looked up when he noticed Garrus stirring on his seat with his subharmonics thrilling with delight. “What?”

“I-I heard about the classes,” Garrus said quickly, too quickly, and slowed down a bit. “I just didn’t know you were the instructor.”

“I’m only one of them,” he explained, leaning against his table and crossing his arms. “K’Foory, from Spec Ops, and Faggit, from the Tech Department, also work with the class once a week.” Chellick’s expression became graver and he lowered his voice before continuing. “We were pressed by the Human Embassy to have Harkin working with us for a while, but he had some negative feedback and the embassy withdrawn the request.”

Garrus’ browplates went up curiously. “I’m surprised they didn’t make noise about this.”

“It’d be difficult to make noise when a human female, a minor at that, complains that the senior human officer at C-Sec harassed her,” he explained with a deep sigh. Garrus felt a lump on his throat thinking about someone like Harkin bothering a young girl like Shepard. “The worst part of it is that the Embassy is protecting the scumbag just so they don’t lose the political leverage.”

Garrus remained in silence, just staring at the empty space above Chellick’s head for a while. This was one of the things he was having more difficulty getting used to about working on the Citadel. Military life was pretty straightforward. Most of the time they were taking down pirates and slavers and smugglers – real criminals who destroyed hundreds of lives.

At the station, it was necessary to tiptoe around others most of the time, trying not to offend people, even criminals, unless you had  some irrefutable evidence against them. He honestly couldn’t understand how his father was able to live in a place like that.

“You know, if you’re not in a hurry to go home, you should come and watch the class,” Chellick suggested, straightening up and heading to the door. “We could arrange a demonstration of turian military sparring; I could kick your ass,” he added in a daring tone, making Garrus laugh.

“Or you could try,” Garrus wasn’t usually smug, openly at least, but he’d been one of the best damn hand-to-hand fighters from his squad and he was still in top shape being fresh out of the military while Chellick was two years his senior on C-Sec.Then again, though C-Sec didn’t exactly slack off on their officers’ conditioning, the training regimen for both organizations were completely different.

Chellick fluttered his mandibles. “Seriously though, you should come and see. Some of them are quite impressive,” and with that he left.

Garrus tried to come up with reasons not to show up at the training, but couldn’t really think of anything convincing enough to keep him away.

* * *

  _The first time the idea crossed her mind, Shepard felt like she just might be going crazy._

She knew it was stupid, but still felt mildly disappointed when she didn’t see Garrus at the Academy the next time she went to the self-defence class.

It’d made her unreasonably sullen and short-tempered for days; she was especially bothered by the persistence of the idea of questioning someone about the blue-eyed turian, it wasn’t like her to get stuck on unreasonable ideas like that. The only thing stopping her from following through on that was the fact she hadn’t run onto Chellick yet.

 _What’s wrong with me?_ , she wondered while entering the Academy gym.

It troubled her that, even as she went through with her daily motions, she wouldn’t stop thinking about the blue-eyed turian. It made no sense that her head kept remembering their chat in the car, the colour of his eyes, the timbre of his voice.

She shivered.

She couldn’t deny that Garrus had drawn her in in an unusual way, his presence making her feel safe like she hadn’t in a long time. It wasn’t anything like she felt around Chellick, either; because, though she trusted the older C-Sec officer, she didn’t feel so at ease with him.

 _Thinking about the devil,_ she mused, looking  said turian enter the gym and take position at the front of the class to start the warm ups and exercises.

 _God! I must be needier than I thought if a random act of kindness gets me swooning like an idiot,_ she chastised herself. _It’s almost like I’m…_

But no, it wouldn’t be possible, would it? They didn’t even know each other except for that brief conversation. And no matter how nice he’d been to her, they were from completely different species. It seemed unnatural. And, still, thinking about him made her heart flutter inside her chest.

She had never really believed in the whole _love at first sight_ thing before. That thought made her frown, upset, and without noticing she tossed her training partner on the floor for the third time in a roll.

“Shepard, take it easy there or you’ll really hurt the kid,” Chellick scolded her, making her take a pause and pay attention to what she was doing.

“Sorry, Chorban,” she panted giving the skinny salarian a wry smile. “Got a bit distracted and forgot to pull up my punches,” she wiped the sweat from her forehead.

“Only you would become more dangerous _while_ distracted,” he shook his head and narrowed his eyes. “You have been really holding up on us, haven’t you?”

Shepard shrugged, rubbing her neck uneasily with the prickling of a headache building up. “I’m stronger than I look.”

She didn’t feel like getting back to practice right away. Her thoughts were an utter and complete mess. So she turned to the instructor. “Chellick, can I sit the next round--”, she trailed off seeing just who he was chatting with.

No one other than Garrus Vakarian himself.

She immediately felt her face heat up and her heart started hammering.

Chellick turned around and narrowed his eyes, nodding his agreement. “If you’re not feeling well then you better take a break,” he motioned to the benches where Vakarian was and walked past her, putting a hand on her shoulder just briefly. “I’ll work with Chorban on his form. He’s slacking on his defense again.”

Her steps were uncertain as she approached the turian that had inhabited her thoughts for the whole week. He remained seated, his piercing blue eyes steady on her, making her feel the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach.

“Hey,” said she as way of greeting.

“Hey, yourself.” His mandibles flickered a bit, the planes and sharps of his face shifted giving him a softer expression.

* * *

  _The first step, Garrus was told, is the hardest._

In retrospect, maybe going to watch Shepard fight wasn't such a good idea. The images in his head would be hard to get rid of and he wouldn’t be able to pretend anymore that the way her body moved didn’t do things to his insides.

He had openly watched her during the practice. The way her body would twist, her muscles moving under the fit workout clothes she wore. He watched with great interest to her block and charge and toss her salarian partner to the floor.

He had watched her so intently that Chellick took notice of the fact. And the other turian hadn’t been a bit surprised.

 _“She’s brilliant,”_ he said with a touch of endearment. _“Sharp and brave; she’s destined for greatness, you mark my words.”_

Then she was coming on his direction and his visor was spilling data about her temperature and heart rate being even higher than it’d been while she was fighting. That bit of information threw him out of balance and he wondered if that was due to his presence there.

She sat beside him, not near enough to invade his personal space, but closer than most people would.

Unsure about what to say to each other, they made a bit of small talk watching Chellick correct a few stances and fell silent after that. They were restless, avoiding eye contact; Shepard gave the turian a sidelong glance and opened her mouth as if to say something before snapping it shut with a sigh.

Garrus tugged at his uniform's collar and rolled his shoulders, one at a time, then he cleared his throat, the girl beside him shifted and straightened herself up on her seat, expectant. He found nothing to say, though, and remained silent, making her sigh again. Garrus couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed at that. He’d waited the whole week for an opportunity to see her and talk to her again, but now he couldn’t think of anything clever enough to impress her. And, _Spirits_ , he wanted to impress her.

When the time came to Chellick end the class, he called Shepard to rejoin the group and she sighed deeply as she got up.

Garrus felt his heart drum and, as if his body had a mind of its own, he held her arm before she could step away. “Shepard, wait!”

“Yes?” Her answer came too quickly and, if he had to guess, he’d say she even seemed hopeful.

“I’ll have a day off at work in three days and I was wondering…”, he saw her tip her head to the side a bit, encouraging him to go on. _Oh, come on, now, Garrus! You can do this!_ He took a breath, looking her straight in the eyes and blurted out. “I was wondering if you would like to have lunch with me…”

She smiled widely and nodded, opening her omni-tool. “Here’s my contact info,” there was a ping on his ‘tool. “Send me a message with when and where…”

He couldn’t hide the grin on his face even if he wanted to as he watched her join the others.

The next two days would be the longest he’d ever had.


	3. This Mess We're In

_Humans and turians are so much alike… over holding grudges._

Shepard stopped in front of the unassuming building and checked the address Garrus had sent her the previous night. She scanned the little plaque in front of the door and, sure enough, her omni-tool translator was reading  _Hesperia – Dual Chiral Restaurant._  That was definitely the place, but she couldn’t see the turian anywhere.

Despite trying her best to avoid it, she ended up being late; and now feared that her date gave up on waiting for her.  _‘But I’m not even that late, it’s just ten minutes,’_  she cursed her luck that made her lose the public transport to get there.

“Are you getting in or are you just going to stand there uselessly?”, an annoyed flanging voice asked from behind her. She turned around only to see an elderly turian with elaborated green markings staring down at her with open hostility.

“I apologize, sir,” she stepped aside, allowing the stranger to pass.

“Damn pyjak,” he grumbled under his breath, getting inside the establishment and making her, not for the first time, rethink the whole situation.

She was seriously considering bolting when she saw Garrus step out of the restaurant stopping beside her.

Shepard felt a bit ashamed by the fact that she almost didn’t recognise him without his eyepiece. He wore a set of grey civvies with a red trimming that did nothing to his figure, and she couldn’t refrain the absurd thought that he’d look better in darker colours; the black and blue of his C-Sec uniform, for example, seemed to brighten him quite nicely.

“Hey,” said she, feeling the tell-tale heat on her face that indicated she was blushing.

“Hey, yourself,” he greeted her with a relieved tone on his voice. “I was starting to get worried.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Shepard could feel herself relax almost immediately when he flicked his mandibles in what she was learning to identify as a smile.

“You’re here now, that’s all that matters,” he indicated the door, but seemed a bit hesitant. “I hope you like asari cuisine. I looked for, but couldn’t find, a dual chiral restaurant that served human food,” his voice had an apologetic flanging and he was fidgeting.

“I had few opportunities to try it, but I liked what I had before,” she smiled putting him at ease and they entered the restaurant together.

Upon crossing the threshold, a dozen heads turned to them, some looking at them with astonishment, others glaring in open hostility. She saw a few humans there, as well as other turians, too, but Garrus and she were the only ones together.

Doing her best to ignore the chill going up and down her spine, she focused on the decoration, instead. The place was actually quite cosy and homey, Shepard noticed, with what seemed to be a simplified version of the usual asari minimalist style seen all over the Citadel.

"I hope this place is okay to you," he murmured, leading her to a set table on a corner where he must've been seated before she arrived. "It's the best I can afford with my current salary."

She thought that he was trying to make a joke, but there was an edge of uncertainty on his voice that made him seem almost frail, as foolish as the idea might be when you’re talking about a turian.

"Oh, I like it in here," she assured him tenderly. "I kinda prefer that the decor is more on a practical side than most asari sets around.”

They exchanged a glance and he fluttered his mandibles. “I believe the lack of curves must be due to the turian side of the business,” his voice was smooth as velvet again.

“Interesting,” she said looking around for something that would strike her as particularly turian, but there wasn’t much. She was about to comment on that when an asari waitress approached their table.

“Can I take your orders?”

“Yes, please,” Garrus cleared his throat. “I’ll have the palaveni rostita bovajo with kukajo radikoj and some citrona suko.”

“Certainly, sir,” the waitress then turned to Shepard. “What about you, miss?”

“Uh, could you tell me what is a popular choice among humans,” she requested, putting the menu down.

“We’ve often been complimented by the chef’s ganbak tarta with azenarioa ogia,” she suggested with a pleasant smile. “The mahats juice is a very frequent pick, as well.”

“I’ll have that, then,” she decided and the asari walked away.

For a minute or so, they just stayed there in silence looking at each other and unsure of what to say. Shepard heaved a sigh and willed her hands to stay put, hoping that it’d be okay for her to try and break the ice.

“So, Garrus,” she started and saw him breathe out some pent up tension. “Why did you wanna be a C-Sec Officer?”

“Hm, it’s a good question,” he straightened out on his seat. “There were several reasons, I guess,” his blue eyes twinkled in earnest as he thought of how to answer that.

“Like what?”, she asked when he didn’t immediately follow through.

Garrus chuckled at her impatience before answering. “Probably the same as most officers: I wanted to fight injustice, wanted to help people,” and then he hesitated for a second. “I guess my father had something to do with it, too.” He cleared his throat and his subvocals acquired a shy tinge. “He’s C-Sec; one of the best,” Shepard could hear the pride on his tone and her heart bled out with longing. “I grew up hearing about his accomplishments or seeing his picture on the vids after a big arrest.”

“That must be nice, working closely with your father like that,” she commented, seeing him tilt his head and flicker his mandibles.

“That depends, I guess,” he shrugged with a little glint in his eyes. “It can be pretty hard because parents often have unfair expectations about their children,” his voice softened up a bit. “And it’s not like we’ll be working on anything together anytime soon either; not with him working on the Presidium and me on the Lower Wards.”

The way he said that gave Shepard the impression that he was a bit disappointed about that particular point and she thought she could understand it. His father had been his hero his whole life and working together was probably a childhood dream.

She remembered the awestruck feeling of looking up to someone as if they're untouchable and larger than life; the way she would sit by her father's feet on the living room by the fire on especially cold nights and listen to him talking about Earth's history and old legends wishing one day she would also know all that and, as her father and her father's father before him, she'd be able to teach the young generations wishing they’d learn with mistakes of old so that they wouldn't be repeated in the future.

“But, yeah,” he continued after a little bit snapping her out of her reveries. “If nothing else, it’s great to be close to him, at least. We didn’t really spend much time together while I was growing up with him working on the Citadel.”

“And do you like it?” She propped her face on her hands watching him intently. Shepard thought about how silly it sounded, even just inside her own head, that she could probably listen to him talk for hours and hours. “Working on C-Sec, I mean.”

“I would be lying if I said I don’t miss the action of a military life,” his left mandible flickered in amusement. “There were other options available: I could’ve applied for Officer’s training or I could've taken part in a special training to become a Spectre.”

“Wow! Really?” Shepard straightened herself on her chair looking at him from a whole new perspective. She’d never actually met a Spectre, but knew they were supposed to be the best among the best in the Galaxy. “That’s impressive!”

“It’s not really that big of a deal. I was targeted as a possible Spectre candidate along with about a thousand other military recruits,” He shrugged and sheepishly looked away. “I probably wouldn’t be selected anyway.”

“Are you kidding me?” She crossed her arms and cocked her head, slightly put out. “Don’t sell yourself short! You’d be great at it!” He looked at her sceptically, but she wasn’t intimidated. “I can tell; I feel it in my gut,” she tapped lightly on her stomach. “And I told you this before, my gut is never wrong.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Anyway, my father talked me into joining C-Sec, instead, and here I am,” he stared at a point in the distance for a second and shook his head. “I’m still not certain that I won’t regret leaving the military in the long run, but it has been an enlightening experience so far."

"What do you like about it?"

“Working with different species, for one; meeting new people, too,” he drawled gazing at her and Shepard felt her face heat up. “The downside of working within the military would be that you don't really get to interact with other species."

“That’s a shame,” she looked pensive for a moment. “You’d think that the military should invest more on improving diplomatic relations with other species instead of reinforcing the rift between them.”

“That’s a very curious notion,” he mentioned, tilting his head a little.

“Historical evidence seems to prove that we’re weaker when we stand apart, is all.” She shrugged, looking at her hands. “Well, that was what my father used to say, anyway.”

Garrus’ features softened up a bit as he watched her intently. Most times Shepard still couldn’t manage to hold back the sorrow when mentioning her family, but she hated it when people meddled, since that would inevitably lead to them pitying her. She could tell he was curious, but hesitant about prying.

“I believe he was right about that,” he said after a time, making her let out a breath she hadn’t noticed she'd been holding. “Every time a fissure gets stronger, war seems to follow. Just think about the Krogan Rebellions, or the Unification War.”

They shared a smile and a new silence fell over them, not an uncomfortable one as before, but companionable, and lasted for a few minutes until the asari waitress brought their orders.

* * *

 

“I’m sorry,” he shook his head after the waitress walked away. “I’ve been talking non-stop and feel like I’m not giving you the chance to do the same.”

“I don’t mind it,” she smiled with blushing cheeks. “Besides it seems like you had a much more interesting life than I,” she shrugged looking at her plate.

“Even so, please, indulge me,” he asked of her. “After all, it’s not fair that I’m the only one to expose myself, is it?”

“Heh, no, I guess not,” she drew a deep breath and took a sip of her juice before looking back to him. “What do want to know?”

Garrus could see the tension over her shoulders and couldn’t imagine what was it that had her so nervous about her life. Despite the curiosity, though, he decided that he could wait for her to open up willingly.

“Hm, I’ll hear anything you want to say,” he told her and saw her relax a bit.

"You know," she rubbed her neck with a crooked smile. "It's kind of hard to think of something to say under a pressure like that."

"Oh?", he cocked his head and thought of something that would make her relax a bit. "Okay, then, how's the food?"

Shepard looked at her untouched plate and coyly smiled before taking a mouthful.

"Um," she widened her eyes while munching and swallowed. "You know, I'm not sure what to think," said she, and he flared his mandibles preoccupied, she seemed to feel it for she quickly added. "It's not bad; just unusual, I guess."

"How so?", he asked, tipping his head.

"Well," she took another piece of the tart-like dish to her mouth. "It starts somewhat bitter; not much, just enough to get noticed, but then it becomes sweeter."

“It seems interesting,” he mentioned.

“It is,” she looked to him. “You want to try it? Wait, can you? Because I heard something about levo and dextro, but,” she stared him with wide eyes. “Oh, God, I just suggested you’d poison yourself, didn’t I?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a very effective way,” Garrus chuckled, amused. “I’m not really allergic, but I'd rather not risk, uh, digestive discomfort.”

For a moment, Garrus looked quietly to his own plate. That little exchange made him think of something that had only briefly crossed his mind while trying to find someplace for them to eat. “What about you? Are you allergic?”

“I don’t know,” she frowned pensively. “I-I don’t think so. I mean, they tested me when I arrived at the Citadel, but,” she shrugged. “The doctors never said anything and I think they would have mentioned if it was severe, right?”

“I suppose so,” he heaved a sigh. “Just to be on the safe side, let’s avoid grabbing a bite of the other’s food, though.”

“Sounds good.”

They ate in silence for a bit and then Shepard sighed stopping with the fork midway to her mouth.

“You think we might be wasting our time?”, she inquired, dismay in her voice.

He looked at her and didn’t need to ask what she was talking about. He felt attracted to her strange figure in a way he couldn’t understand and every sign indicated that she felt something for him, too. Her asking that, just confirmed it.

“I don’t know,” was Garrus’ honest answer. He didn’t know what he was doing anymore than she did, but, out of the two, he was the more experienced and she looked so frail at that moment, so in need of an assurance that he couldn’t deny her that. “Is it a waste that we take our time to know each other better in order to become very good friends?”

“No, it isn’t,” she sighed; her shoulders sagging just a bit. “I’d like that, actually.”

“And, well,” he drawled with a sly grin, his piercing blue eyes set on her. “If it happens to progress into something else, it wouldn’t be a bad thing, right?”

Shepard giggled, flushing a bit. “Not at all.”

“Do you have any hobbies?”, Garrus inquired after another moment of silence.

“Well, not really,” she frowned staring her plate. “I spend most of my time studying or training, because I want to enlist to the Academy, you know,” she rubbed her neck. “Apply straight to officers training.”

“I didn’t know you could that,” he said flaring his mandibles. “But I suppose things on the Alliance are a bit different than in the Hierarchy. You see, in order to apply for officer training we have to serve two full years in the military first,” he told her.

“That’s why you only recently got the option to apply,” she mused and he nodded.

“So, there isn’t anything you like to do for fun, then?”, he cocked his head looking at her.

“I used to work on jigsaw puzzles before I came here,” she shrugged with a saddened expression. “There is no space to do that on the orphanage, though.”

“What is a 'jigsaw puzzle'?”, he asked, curious.

"Well, it's an old game where you have an image on cardboard, but it's broken down in small pieces and you have to put it back together," she explained with a frown on her face. "Sounds kind of stupid when said like that."

"Just a little bit, yeah," he grinned. "What do you do when you finish putting it together?"

"You can frame it and use it as decoration," she shrugged. "Some of the images are of these really old masterpieces, real famous ones, and it's actually nice to know that you can admire it's likeness because you were the one that put it together."

"It makes a bit of sense, I guess," he agreed.

“And others are pictures of famous places. The last one I pieced together was an image of the Great Wall of China," she beamed excitedly. "It's this really old construction back on Earth, I think it's more than two thousand years old and it can be seen all the way from Luna, Earth's moon."

"Wow! I had no idea humans had built such great things on such an early stage," he flared his mandibles and raised his browplates. "I mean, I thought you had only got a hold on engines a few centuries ago."

"The ones that didn’t use manual or animal labour, yes. How did you know?" She cocked her head, watching him curiously and he rubbed his cheekbone, over his marking, trying to hide his embarrassment.

"I did a bit of research on human history and customs during the week," he admitted. "Just some basic facts," his subharmonics thrummed in embarrassment.

Shepard smiled gently. "And what have you learned?"

"That you are a pretty adaptable species in an almost scary way," he answered with a teasing note.

"Hey!", she exclaimed with mock outrage.

"I didn't say it was a bad thing," he drawled, making her giggle. Her delight caused his heart to flutter. “You said you don’t work on these puzzles anymore for lack of space?”

“Yes, the nicest ones can vary from a hundred to way over a thousand pieces and can take a long time to finish, so it needs a place to stay put without needing to take it apart when you’re not working on it,” she told him. “Otherwise you’ll just never have it done.”

“Hm, it actually sounds kind of interesting,” said he in a contemplative manner making her smile.

They finished their meals and Garrus asked if she'd like some dessert. They looked at the menu and after they ordered, Shepard sipped her juice again.

“If you excuse me, I need to refresh myself," she got up and looked at him slightly embarrassed. "I'll be right back."

He nodded and took the opportunity to check his omni-tool for messages. He was in the middle of reading a note from father confirming their meeting on the shooting range later (Garrus almost wished his father had cancelled it) when he heard Shepard yelp and looked up to find her on the floor with an elder turian menacing growling at her.

 _Damn!_  He was on his feet before he could even think of it.

"Don't think I didn't see what you were up to, you vermin," Garrus heard the turian say to her and felt rage pour through him. Just who did that old spur think he was? As he approached the commotion he started to analyse the surroundings.

A couple humans were standing too, ready to interfere and he could hear the thrumming on a few subharmonics that indicated some of the turians there were just waiting for a chance to deal with the humans.

“I’m sorry, sir, but–”, Shepard started to say as she tried to get up. The older male would have none of that, though, and pushed her to the floor again.

“Don’t even get me started,” he barked at her. “I saw you trying to get my companion’s purse when you passed by.”

“I hope you have some evidence of that, sir,” Garrus declared getting beside Shepard and helping her up with a concerned look. She shook her head, indicating that she wasn’t hurt and he finally looked the other turian closely. The first thing he noticed was that the turian was a barefaced; secondly, he was wearing an expensive outfit, what meant he was somewhat wealthy and that raised a series of questions, because no barefaced turian could land a respectful job. That gave Garrus an idea about how to deal with the crude bastard. “I’d hate to have C-Sec bring you in for wantonly assaulting the girl,” he snarled, daring the other to try his luck.

They stared each other down on a silent standoff, growls and subharmonics flaring.

“Joram, let it go,” his asari companion put a hand on his arm, attracting his attention. “I’m sure the girl just bumped into my chair while passing by,” she tried to soothe him, but the turian shoved her hand away and darted off the restaurant. “That’s just great!” She rolled her eyes, sinking back on her chair.

“You know,” Shepard looked back to Garrus with a wry smile. “Maybe we should leave the dessert for another day.”

“I think you’re right,” he nodded, feeling everyone else’s eyes fixed on them. “It’s a shame, though,” he sighed as they walked toward the cashier. “It’s been ages since I’ve had dolca carom.”

“Well, we could ask for a take out,” she suggested, but he shook his head.

“It’s something to look forward next time,” he said it with a light questioning inflection, giving her the chance to decide whether or not there would be a next time.

“You have yourself a deal,” she beamed at him as they proceeded to pay their bill before leaving the establishment.

As they walked toward his car, he started regretting having to meet his father after lunch since it would cut their date short. They remained silent as they settled into the vehicle and up till he set it in motion.

“There are still a lot of prejudices among our species, huh?”, she mentioned with a dejected tone to her voice.

“It looks that way.” He couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t bothered him.

“I mean, it was uncomfortable enough when they were only glaring at us for being together, but I never thought someone would actually attack me for getting too close,” she lamented and then shook her head.

Garrus watched her in silence for a moment as they got into the fast lane, feeling heartbroken. “We could stop seeing each other if you rather we don’t meet again,” he stated, resolute.

“Oh, God!” Shepard turned to him, wide-eyed. “That’s not what I meant!”, she choked, speechless. “It’s just, maybe we should stay away from public places,” as she covered her face. “That didn’t come out right, either; it sounds like I’m embarrassed of being seen with you, but it’s not that,” t5she tipped her head, eyes moving around as if she was searching for words.

“You meant that our people aren’t even ready for the notion that a human and a turian can be friends, yet,” he couldn’t help but come to her aid on glimpsing the affliction on her face.

“Yes!” The relief on her voice was almost palpable. “I’d really like to keep seeing you, though,” she assured him eagerly.

“I think we can think of something,” he grinned at her, glad beyond measure that she’d not simply given up.

Unfortunately, the ride back to the orphanage was a short one and didn’t allow them to come up with a solution.

“I’ll message you when I get home later,” he told her as he parked the car.

“I hope you turians are better at this _‘call you later’_ thing than human guys,” she said, teasingly peering at him as she reached for the door. “Bye, Garrus,” she hesitated for just a second and then leaned toward him, gently kissing his mandible before getting out of the car and heading into the building.

He placed a hand right where her soft lips touched his face, still feeling the warmth of her breath on his plates.

If enjoying that feeling meant he was a xenophile, he was okay with that.

 


	4. Intuition Tells Me How to Live

 

_Sometimes Shepard finds it hard to deal with humans._

Shepard spent the whole meditation session watching Chorban closely and not believing what she was seeing. It just wasn’t possible; she had to be imagining things. By the end of practice, she couldn’t hold herself anymore and had to check it out.

“Have you gained a few inches since last week?” She stood beside the salarian, comparing their heights with her hand – yes, he was an inch or so taller than her now, despite them being the same height the last time they saw each other. What was it? Four, five days ago?

“Yes, I finally reached my growth spurt. It was about time,” said he, taking a step back.  _Typical Chorban: he always did seem a bit uncomfortable in his own skin._ It was not as if she couldn’t relate. “I’m actually a little behind my clutch-siblings,” he explained.

His comment made her smile a bit as she thought how weird it was that he’d be considered a late bloomer at the age twelve. Bemused, she wondered when did she stopped looking at him as an alien and started seeing him as Chorban, the individual.

Species. Titles. Labels. Lately, she’d been thinking of that again and again. Those were such outdated concepts, but it seemed to be a problem all over the galaxy and there was little hope of change anytime soon. Not with the way the Council kept their respective races up above the others.  _‘Lesser species’_  were Avina’s words about the Citadel races that only have embassies on the station and don’t belong to the Council.

“You know what, Chorban,” she said, dismissing those thoughts for now. It would only ruin her good humor. “We should go out and celebrate!”

“Why would we celebrate that? It’s a biologic event, not a great achievement.” He stared her down as if she had said something truly absurd – which, considering the way he put it, actually was.

“Why do we need a reason?” She found herself saying, trying to rile him up. “Let’s just go out and have a party!”

She’d been fairly surprised herself when she’d found out that humans were the only ones that paid great attention to such a foolish thing as the passing of time on one’s life through birthdays. Other species have their come of age rituals, but were a lot more specific than just going through one more year.

“Humans and their weird human ways,” the salarian’s big bulbous eyes were blinking quickly as if he was trying to understand it. He ended up giving up (she’d be the first to admit that humans, as a rule, didn’t really make sense) and shook his head. “In any case, I can’t,” Chorban straightened himself up, rather proudly. “I’m attending to the admission evaluation of engineering technology at the Science Department of the Citadel University.”

“That’s something big,” She eyed him suspiciously. “Shouldn’t you be preparing yourself?”

“I am prepared,” he stated, taking a deep breath. “And, though I actually only came here today to resign from training, officer K’Foory convinced me to join in a last session of arketa,” He stretched his arms way up above his head. “I thought it’d be a good idea once it always helped me getting a clearer mind.”

A smile flickered over Shepard’s lips. The scrawny salarian was always a lot more comfortable during the asari meditation than the turian fight classes.

“You’ll be missed,” she said with a thick voice. It’d be so strange not having him there anymore; the mere thought of people suddenly leaving her life gave her chills. Especially when she had so little control over the events. She hated that it made her feel like she was being abandoned and she hated that this line of thought was unfair and selfish and childish.

“You’ll find someone else to toss around soon enough, I’m sure.” He shrugged, his voice not expressing any emotion, but his eyes carried just a bit of mischief that almost went by unnoticed. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to–” His words trailed off when he turned to leave and his eyes narrowed dangerously. “What’s  _he_  doing here?”

Even before she turned to see who he was talking about, Shepard felt the little hairs at her neck standing up and her stomach knotted on that familiar way that spoke of trouble ahead – as if the open hostility on the usually mellow salarian wasn’t enough indication. The sight of a human in C-Sec uniform entering the gym only served to make things worse.

“I thought Harkin had been suspended.” She heard Chorban say.

“Looks like he’s back on duty,” she answered, dreading the thought of dealing with him again.

It wasn’t that she was afraid of Harkin – she had stood up to him from the start, refusing to let him grope her during practice (her dad raised no fool!). What bothered her, though, was that the politicians were unwilling to punish him due to his value as the first human on Citadel Security. Whenever she thought of that diplomat trying to coerce her to withdraw her charges against the slimy bastard, she almost couldn’t control the nausea. She could never thank Chellick enough for his intervention that day.

Shepard shook her head and turned to her salarian friend with a strained smile. “You were departing, weren’t you?”

“I don’t think it’s prudent to leave you alone,” he said, stepping closer to her as he kept an eye on the approaching human.

“Just ignore him,” she muttered, keeping the other human on her peripheral vision.

“Somehow I’m not a bit surprised to see the little Miss Prissy around a lizard.” Harkin said with a snide smile. “Though you’re not very popular among our kind, you seem very comfortable among the aliens, don’t you Prissy girl?”

Shepard knew Harkin was taunting her, but the accuracy of his commentary made her uncomfortable.  _How can he know something like that?_

“Let’s go, Chorban,” Shepard said, decided to ignore Harkin. “I don’t want you to lose your interview because of–”

“So that’s how you get your kinks, isn’t it, Miss Prissy?” Harkin interrupted her, getting close enough to push the salarian away and grab her by the arm.

Chorban stepped back up, but stopped when Harkin made a show of resting his other hand on the pistol on his waist, making the salarian haste towards the door –  _To get some help, I hope_.

“You see, Princess,” he whispered in her ear. “That’s why don’t trust the damn aliens. You think they’ll risk their necks for a human?”

“I don’t know what it is that you want, but you’re wasting your time here,” said she, gritting her teeth and trying to free her arm. “And if you don’t let me go on this instant, you’ll regret it bitterly.”

“Is that a threat, little girl?” he smiled, apparently satisfied by her reaction, and pulled her even closer.

She knew about half a dozen ways of disabling a bigger and stronger assailant. The only thing stopping her was the feeling of  _that_  being exactly what the bastard expected her to do.

“What? All bark and no bite?” he sneered at her, squeezing her arm a bit harder. She could feel her milky skin bruising already.

She hoped Chorban would get help quickly, because didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to take of the bastard touching her arm and breathing down her neck, but her guts were telling her that if she took any action, things would blow up on her face. In order to control herself, she started to count to ten, and then back to one.

_Seven. Six. Five. Fo–_

“What is happening here?” The flanging voice hit her like a wave of relief and she turned towards the door only to see Chellick approaching with a nervous Chorban and, unexpectedly, a furious Garrus. Her heart flipped inside her chest. “Harkin, get away from her!”

“Can’t a man have a nice little chat with a lovely lady, anymore?” Harking jibed, facing the newcomers. He tightened his grip on her for a second before tossing her towards them and crossing his arms, undisturbed.

Caught out of guard, Shepard lost her balance and found herself being supported by Garrus’ strong, three-taloned hand with a gentleness that contrasted so much from the human’s handling to the point of being ironic.

“It didn’t look like  _the lady_  was enjoying the conversation,” Chellick returned the human’s ironic tone. “Besides, I was there when the Executor ordered you to stay away from her.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Harkin grimaced, rolling his eyes. “Do something about it, or don’t; but spare me the crap lecture.” He shook his head and turned to the door. “Unbelievable. The little bitch must have alien-candy-flavored tits,” he muttered, as he went away, causing Garrus to let out an angry growl.

“I hate that guy.” Chorban vocalized, matter-of-factly, receiving a hummed acquiescence from the turians. “Well, that was a tremendous farewell adventure, very exciting and all, but I have an interview to attend and need to go now. Can’t be late.”

“Good luck, Chorban.” Shepard waved him goodbye. “And thank you for going out to get some help.”

“Yes, yes…” He dismissed the issue as he walked away, shaking his head.

“You okay?” Garrus’ husky voice resonated through her, making a shiver run up and down her spine.

“Yeah,” Her answer sounded small in her own ears, then she cleared her throat before straightening up and answering again. “Yes, thank you.”

“I suggest you put in another formal complaint with the Executor, Shepard, and get Harkin a restraining order to keep him away from you.” Chellick said, looking at her strangely.

Shepard was momentarily distracted by Garrus’ soothing low rumble behind her before turning back to Chellick. Her body’s reaction to the blue-eyed turian reminded her of Harkin mentioning her being constantly surrounded by aliens. The comment had set a red flag the moment the human officer mentioned it, but now it was like a screaming siren.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she declared, getting awkward looks from both the turians. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d love nothing more than make sure he never gets near me again, but...” she frowned thinking of how to explain the situation. “Before you guys got here, he said something that… uh… he couldn’t have known unless he’d done a background check on me, and I feel that he’s expecting, counting even, for something to be done against him through official channels,” Chellick looked doubtful, but Garrus was staring her without an ounce of hesitancy in his eyes.

“How do you mean?” The seriousness of Garrus’ tone made her smile. Despite the little time they knew each other, there was such a connection between them that she couldn’t explain if she wanted to.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that he’d look for trouble so soon after getting back on duty?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense,” the blue-eyes turian, shifted from one foot to another, crossing his arms around his waist and turned to Chellick. “Whatever else Harkin might be, he’s not stupid. He has to know that getting too many disciplinary dismissals so close together won’t do him any good. Never mind his political value, there’s only so much the higher ups can ignore.”

“I feel like…” Shepard refrained herself before completing her line of thought. She turned to Chellick with a frown. “I think he’s being coached to make it look like xenophobic persecution.”

Chellick remained in silence for a while, brooding at that possibility. “Maybe, if that Simmons woman is behind this…” Chellick started, getting a nod from the girl.

“Who’s that?” Garrus wanted to know. Chellick looked to Shepard, shrugging as to say the decision to involve Vakarian was hers.

“While Harkin’s case was being analysed by the Executor, a diplomat by the name of Inez Simmons cornered me, trying to intimidate me in order to get me to withdraw the charges.”

“We later found out she’s affiliated with a pro-human party known as Terra Firma,” Chellick added, then shook his head staring at Shepard. “Do you know how ridiculous this is? Involving you, I mean. Why would a human help persecuting one of their own?”

“You don’t know anything about human history, do you, Chellick?” Garrus inquired, with a light stir of his mandible.

“And since when you do?” Chellick’s answer came as a whiplash, making Garrus halt every movement for an instant.

“I’ve been doing some research,” he shrugged and rubbed his neck, uncomfortably avoiding looking at Shepard.

“About human history? What the hell for?” Chellick huffed and raised his browplates, skeptic.

“Anyway,” Shepard intervened, coming to the rescue of her favorite turian. “My being a human wouldn’t give me much credit, if this xenophobic theory is really accurate. I’d be looked upon as being an alien sympathizer…” She looked away for a second trying not to blush. If anyone knew where her mind had taken her lately, she’d be seen as much more than that. “I’m the first to admit that I’m not an easy person to deal with and I don’t have many friends. I also spend most of my time surrounded by aliens,” she explained, counting on her fingers why Chellick’s logic wouldn’t cut it.

“I see,” Chellick looked uncomfortable with the simply put way she said that, and he probably had a reason to be. All the time she knew him and she never opened up to him like that, but Garrus’ presence somehow made it easier for her to just start talking. “I can understand why it would give you pause. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

“We can look into this and take actions against Harkin if my intuition is wrong, but…” she interrupted herself, turning towards Garrus when she heard him chuckle.

“You’re never wrong,” he supplied, making her grin. It made her unaccountably giddy that they already had something resembling a private joke.

Garrus’ mandibles quivered in the turian version of a grin for a moment, then Chellick’s subvocals resonated around them and Garrus looked away; his own subharmonics vibrating in answer.

Shepard felt slightly cheated before their wordless conversation, though she could assume what they were discussing.

She suddenly felt very self-conscious, taking notice of the comfortable way she and Garrus had been standing close together, inside one another’s personal space with their arms almost touching each other.

_It seems that the two of us feel too much at ease around Chellick. It made us let our guards down._

She’d hate to see him looking at her with that same disgust she’d seen on other people's faces. It would hurt tenfold because it would come from someone she knows and considers a friend. So, she hesitated a bit before turning towards Chellick, and felt relief beyond measure when she noticed the teasing gleam in his green eyes.

She smiled lopsidedly. With friendly teasing she could deal with.


	5. You're Not Alone

_Things would be easier if Shepard had someone to talk to._

Jane Shepard wasn't exactly experienced in matters of attraction and desire, but she wasn't a complete stranger to the subject, either. Sure, she still blushed whenever she thought of sex, but she did think of it. Occasionally.

What she wasn't used to, though, was the idea of finding an alien desirable. It wasn't xenophobia, just that she'd been around aliens ever since coming to the Citadel and that had never happened before. So it wasn’t surprising that she’d feel puzzled by her sudden attraction to a turian. Hell, she's known Chellick for over a year now, and never felt anything of the sort.

She knew she felt something for Garrus, but she couldn’t help wondering if that was normal and, whenever she stopped to really think about it, those feelings seemed somewhat wrong and unnatural. Yet, when she talked to Garrus or found herself around him it felt so right, it confused her. The strangeness of the situation required her to analyse the issues that troubled her the most.

First of all, _did she find turian voices enticing?_ Yes, in a soothing way (it reminded her of the old R &B singers her father liked to listen to), but Garrus’ voice was on a whole ‘nother league. It was so seductive and did things to her that… Well, for the last week she felt like taking cold showers after their daily talks via omni-tool – and it wasn’t even dirty talk, for God’s sake.

Secondly, _did she find turians physically attractive?_ She caught herself observing turians all around the station (it did nothing to her whatsoever) and, after some consideration, she concluded that the answer to that was a definite “ _No”_. She did, though, notice that after so much time around Chellick, turians had stopped being strange and odd-shaped.

It still didn’t explain how Garrus bypassed whatever logic she could come up with and make her wonder things like: "What would his hand on hers feel like if he took that damn glove off?" and "How would it feel to (properly) kiss him?"

She couldn’t ignore the way Garrus looked at her either; from the very beginning he'd looked at her like he actually saw _her_. After spending the last two years being a nameless, faceless file number on Alliance registers, she'd missed that. It wasn't like she was being mistreated at the orphanage, but even Mrs. Keller's kindness was tinged by obligation. Shepard was, after all, just one more kid going through the system who would leave as soon as she could – and the elderly woman was right about that, she really couldn’t wait to leave.

It'd been two nights in a row that she’d had wet dreams about making out with Garrus Vakarian and her own feelings were driving her crazy. Maybe the solution would be considering what she liked about him, pushing aside the differences. She should just stop thinking and follow her instincts. So far, they’ve never let her down.

Once that was decided, there were some things she had to take care of before investing in that relationship. After her first wet dream, she found the courage to ask the orphanage doctor about her allergies, inquiring specifically about dextro-sensitivity when the doctor didn’t mention it. She wasn’t allergic at all. Of course, she didn’t have a clue about what to do with that information, but at least now she knew.

Shepard had also learned a few things about herself over the last week. For example, she'd never seen herself as the stereotypical girly girl (between growing up on a farm as a single child, being almost single-handedly raised by her father, because her mother was constantly travelling all around Mindoir to care for the colony’s livestocks, and being a late bloomer to top it all off) she’d always proudly considered herself more of a tomboy.

Thinking of her parents and her childhood still hurt; she knew the pain would never go completely away, only fade, but she was grateful that she could think of them and find some semblance of happiness in the memories. Up until recently it has been just so painful, she'd rather avoid remembering the past altogether. Now, though, she was even able to summon a faint smile at the thought of Benjamin Shepard’s reaction to the sight of his _Lil’ Willie_ preening herself to go out on a date.

And, really, there she was, feeling just a bit victorious after battling her meagre wardrobe to produce something that looked nice and trying to control her giddiness as she stood in front of a mirror applying make up other than the lipstick she usually wore. The sand-colour eyeshadow only brightened her eyes a bit – enough to be different and make her feel pretty. _Sometimes less is more._ She could hear her mother’s voice inside her head and took a step back, to analyse her image in the mirror. _Well, it doesn’t look like too much… It’s actually quite sophisticated, I think._

She snickered, finding it funny that she was getting all worked up about meeting Garrus since they weren’t really going out this time. After all, they were only going to meet in his apartment and order some food in. She hadn’t felt this nervous on their first date. _I suppose the fact that I tried not to think about meeting Garrus at the Hesperia as an actual date helped a bit_ , she considered. Thinking of it as a date sent her heartbeat skyrocketing.

“Looking good, Shepard." One of her roommates commented, walking past the door. “Hot date tonight?” The girl questioned with a lopsided grin.

Shepard smiled lightly at the playful tone in the other girl’s voice. She didn’t have many friends at the orphanage and had difficulty opening up to the other kids – mostly out of shame (she’d been in a really bad place when she moved to the Citadel and wasn’t proud of all the things she did back then). The little Asian girl showed up by the time she started getting better and was one of the few people who actually talked to her nowadays. Shepard was grateful for at least having that.

“Nothing of the sort, Emily,” she assured, feeling her face heat up a bit and avoiding looking in the other girl’s direction. She got her backpack and prepared to leave.

“Uh-huh,” Emily sounded unconvinced. “So you’re not going to meet the mystery guy you’ve spent the last week sighing over at the Comm?”

Shepard stared at her friend for a moment, not knowing what to say. She had been so careful when talking to Garrus, making sure there was no one around. _How did she find out?_

“You should make a career out of getting into other people’s lives, Wong,” Shepard deadpanned, as Emily casually shrugged and took a seat on her bed.

“What should I tell Mrs. Keller?”, Emily asked, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“You’re assuming she doesn’t know I’m going out,” Shepard smirked, making the girl laugh.

“You’re no fun, Shepard,” she crossed her arms and shook her head. “You don’t have a single rebel cell with you, do you?” She asked, mock-pouting.

“I can neither confirm nor deny it...” Shepard grinned, waving goodbye.

Behind her, she heard Emily laugh, gleefully. “That’s more like it!” As the door closed, Shepard heard the girl saying: “I’ll want to hear every single detail later…”

Shepard walked the barren greyish halls with a sad smile. As much as she’d like to have someone to talk to about her feelings and thoughts, it wasn’t that simple. They’d slipped out with Chellick and, thankfully, he had accepted well the fact of her and Garrus seeing each other, but she had no idea how Emily would react to their developing relationship and that made her cold inside.

 _No, it’s best to keep things just between the two of us._ _Plus Chellick, I guess._

* * *

 

_Chellick sees no harm in teasing his friends in the midst of something serious._

Chellick was combing through Shepard's files in order to give the orphanage's psychiatrist his final report on her performance. A report that was required of him and every other instructor every four months due to the kid being flagged by the Alliance with acute PTSD when she came into their care.

At first he thought such a thing was a waste of time (and in no way his responsibility), but as they started to know each other, he came to care dearly for her. And how could he not? She was hard working, strong-willed and courageous; she took abuse from no one, despite the fact that she had suffered more than anyone her age was supposed to. It seemed only natural to start seeking out ways to help her on his own.

Up till recently, though, he worried that she still refused to open up to people and the notes from the psychiatrist echoed those same concerns. That's why he was pleasantly surprised to find out that Garrus had, somehow, managed to break her barriers and worm his way inside her defences. He'd spent the last week prompting his partner to tell him what they talked about, baiting him out with pieces of information that Garrus could relate to Shepard, but Garrus' seemingly obliviousness started to worry Chellick that maybe she hasn't opened up as much as he'd hoped.

_If only there was a way for me to help her. If I could get into the subject of Shepard’s childhood on Mindoir… or her parents._

He smiled as an idea came up to him and opened his omni-tool to call Garrus. _They must be on their date already. If I play this right, I can even have a bit of fun along the way._

* * *

 

_Sometimes Garrus wasn’t sure whether Chellick being horrified over his blossoming interspecies-relationship would be a blessing in disguise._

Garrus had just stepped back into the apartment, his arms full with bags, when his omni-tool biped. He groaned, recognizing the chime he’d set for Chellick and seriously considered not answering, but quickly gave up the idea. The teasing the next day would be thrice worse if he ignored his partner. If he thought that Chellick disagreeing with his relationship with Shepard would be bad, having the other’s support had been almost as unbearable. For the past six days, Chellick has done nothing more than giving him that knowing look, the shrewd vocal trills and crooked mandible flaps. Garrus truly hoped that, when the novelty wore off, Chellick would get quickly bored.

Garrus put his packages down and answered the hail. “Garrus here.”

“Is she there, yet?” Chellick said as a greeting, even before his image appeared on the vidlink.

“Not yet,” Garrus shook his head at the crestfallen look on the other’s face. “Why you ask?”

“Just wanted to say ‘hi’,” Garrus clamped his mandibles to his face and controlled the desire of pointing out that Chellick’s excuse was flawed as they’d seen each other in practice the previous day. “Wasn’t your date supposed to have started half an hour ago?”

“Yes, but I was running a few last minute errands and had to delay it a bit,” he explained, starting to unpack some of the levo snacks he’d bought. _I wonder what is this shrimp._

“Huh, you better watch yourself.” Chellick’s vocalization gave Garrus a pause.

“Why you say that?” Garrus looked for the usual signs of teasing on his friend’s face, but over the ‘tool it was hard to tell.

“I’ve read that human women hate those last minute changes,” said Chellick, his voice tones running afoul through the Comms’ static and Garrus thrilled suspicion. “They tend to think their partners are dwelling or having second thoughts."

“She seemed okay with it,” Garrus was determined not to let Chellick fool him. Besides, nothing he read about humans pointed to that bit of information.

“But how would you know? It’s not like she has sub-harmonics, right?” This time Garrus had the impression he heard mirth in his friend’s voice, but still couldn’t be absolutely sure.

“She’s not one to hold up on what she’s thinking,” he assured, trying to imprint as much certainty on both his voice sets as possible. _Damn you, Chellick! As if I didn’t have enough problems already._

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Chellick. Garrus gruffed, under the impression that the other hadn’t been fooled with his display of confidence. “So, what are your plans, anyway?”

“I’m not telling you that!” Garrus shook his head. Chellick had been trying to get that information out of him for almost a week now. _Did he think he’d catch me off guard by suddenly changing the subject?_

“Why not?” Chellick’s voice sounded almost  young at that and Garrus almost started laughing.

“I don’t ask what you do when you go out with K’Foory,” he commented and felt his neck warm at the naughty thrum of Chellick’s subvocals.

“I’d gladly answer to that…” Chellick murmured.

Garrus cleared his throat and went on, ignoring the interruption. “So I’d appreciate it if you stopped meddling.”

“I’m only trying to protect Shepard,” he said, his mandibles flitting impishly.

“Uh-huh,” Garrus sighed.  “Even if I told you what we'll be doing, you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

"Ha! Is that a challenge, Vakarian??" Chellick laughed. "I know her for longer than you do, remember?"

“Why do you insist on turning everything into a competition?” Garrus shook his head, and then he smirked. "Besides, time isn't the only thing to take into consideration here, Chellick," Garrus declared confidently.

He couldn’t help but notice how much Shepard fought with herself over opening up to him. He doubted she had told Chellick half the things she told him. And that wasn’t much.

Chellick remained silent for a few seconds, his mandibles fluttering restlessly while he seemed to consider something. When he looked back, his subharmonics had a sudden serious thrumming. “Are you allowed to drop her family name, yet?”

“No,” Whatever Garrus might’ve thought Chellick would say, it was not that; even through the Comm, his flat voice contrasted greatly with his second voice set and that made him worry. “Are you?”

“As far as I know she doesn’t allow anyone, not even the caretakers at the orphanage, to call her by either of her given names.”

“Either one? You mean she has more than one?”

“See? Good thing you haven’t betted on it, ‘cause I’d win…” Chellick tried to distract him, but the taunting sounded completely insincere.

“Wait, Chellick,” Garrus interjected, not taking the bait. “What are you not telling me?”

“You better ask _her_ that,” was his only answer, his voice thrilling as if his duty had been performed. “See you tomorrow!” Chellick hung up before he could push for more information.

Garrus was uncertain of what it could possibly mean. He could think of a few reasons why she wouldn’t tell him her full name. He heard of humans that didn’t like or were ashamed of their names before - just the other day he had filed a report for a lady, Morag Jones, who was very reluctant to say her first name. _‘It sounds like a monster’s name’_ , she’d said with a scowl, as if daring him to comment on the subject (he hadn’t, of course).

The problem, though, was the way Chellick’s voice sounded as he commented about the matter. He was serious; way too serious for it to be such a trivial thing. Garrus kept emptying the bags in a disconnected way, putting snacks and canned food in the cabinet and beverages in the fridge, his body performing automatic movements as his mind wandered all around the place.

He’d be letting Shepard find her own pace because he could tell, by the way she tiptoed around him, she had difficulty trusting people; but now he wondered whether or not he shouldn’t have pushed a bit more for information. The only problem with that was the possibility of scaring her off for good.

The apartment door chimed, lifting the daze that fell over him. He pushed the matter aside, momentarily, as he went to answer. _Let’s see what the day will bring_ , he thought. If he was presented with the opportunity, he’d take it. If not, he’d set a plan in motion for the next time they meet.

Garrus felt his mouth go dry as the door swished open, revealing the girl on the other side. The inexplicable attraction she exercised over him twisted his stomach and made his heart accelerate. The thrill of having her there, in his apartment, his personal space, made him even put his talk with Chellick aside.

“Hey,” he drawled, flapping his mandibles once when she stepped in; the door closing behind her. She looked different, her green eyes somehow greener than ever before and her red fringe ( _Hair, Garrus; it’s called hair!)_ was arranged in a weird way, half loose, half tied to the back.

“Hey, yourself,” she chuckled, crinkling her nose a bit.

“What’s funny?” He wondered, tilting his head.

“I think we took to greet each other the same way every time we talk,” she grinned.

“Huh,” he rubbed his neck. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she grinned and shrugged shyly, her hands twisting around each other. Her eyes moved from his face to the interior of the apartment over his shoulders, then back again to him with a glint of curiosity. She seemed not to know what to do with herself.

“Please, come in, make yourself at home,” he pointed to the couch.

“Thanks,” she dropped her backpack on the couch and walked to the window, looking at the movement outside.

After a moment of awkward silence between them, he heard her catch her breath before turning to face him.

“So, when we talked last night you said you had a surprise…” Shepard prompted, and she sounded so eager (and he was sure that she was trying not to show it), that it made him chuckle.

Instead of answering, he pointed to a wrapped box over the kitchen counter and saw her chew on her lower lip as her eyes caught sight of it. She looked back his way for a second and opened the brightest smile he has ever seen before approaching the box with a certain bounce to her walk.

"I hope you like it," said Garrus, sitting on the couch and watching for her reaction. "It was harder to find than I’d anticipated," he added, she stopped, with her hands on the box, and turned his way with both eyebrows raised.

"You didn't need to go through trouble, you know," she said quietly, her shoulders stifling just barely.

“I wanted to,” he flickered his mandible and let his subvocals rumble in a low calming timbre. “And what are you talking about? You haven’t even opened it yet,” he said once her shoulders relaxed again.

"Just don't make a habit of going out of your way for me, okay?" She took the box and approached him, sitting beside him. "It'd make me really uncomfortable. Especially when I can’t do the same.”

“There’s no need for it,” Garrus rested his hand on her knee; he flared his mandibles in a lazy movement.

She raised one shoulder slightly. “It’s customary", the corner of her mouth twitched almost imperceptibly and she focused her attention back to the box in her hands.

Really carefully, she searched for the seams of the wrapping trying not to damage the colourful paper. When she opened it enough to see the box beneath it, he heard her gasp and she lifted her head with wide eyes. “Did you get me a puzzle?”

“Yeah, and I know you said you don’t have space at the orphanage,” said Garrus, sounding way too defensive. “So I thought you might want to leave it here, and we could work on it together,” he suggested, looking at her expectantly. He considered for quite a while before deciding on buying it, afraid that he’d somehow cross a line there. These were things, memories, that belonged to her past, after all.

Her eyes softened and she looked back to the box, unwrapping it completely. For a long moment she just traced the embossed image on the box; her fingers moving from the silver moon, to the blue planet behind it.

“It’s a beautiful photo,” said she in a quiet voice, then looked up. Her lips twitched and her eyes were a bit unfocused. “I don’t remember Earth, you know;” there was a guarded gleam in her eyes and Garrus couldn’t help holding his breath, as if any sound could make her retreat back into herself. “I was only two when my parents decided to leave and try to make a life as colonists,” she explained. “It’s weird that I’ve never wondered what my life would be like if they’d never left…” She put the box over the table centre and frowned and her voice was barely audible, like she hadn’t meant for it to be heard.

Garrus felt his heart clench a bit by the sudden frailty in her demeanour. It just didn’t seem to agree with her, but he had told himself that he’d use whatever overture she gave him and that was _it_. “What happened to…?” He started, but hesitated, foolish and cowardly, when he saw her wince.

She crossed her arms, rubbing them as if suddenly chilled. She looked weak and wounded and he hated it. More than not knowing, he hated seeing her so vulnerable. He opened his mouth to tell her that she didn’t need to answer, but she was already talking again.

“Batarian slavers…” she answered with wobbly voice. He couldn’t control the sudden rage from resounding on his second larynx and was grateful that humans couldn’t really understand all the nuances of turian growling.

“Spirits! I’m so so–...” He started, automatically, but she wouldn’t allow him to finish.

“Don’t, please!” She turned back to him and shook her head. “I hate telling people about that because they always end up looking at me like this…” She gestured in his direction with hardened eyes. “I don’t want your pity, Garrus.”

“It’s not pity, Shepard,” he declared, seriously, getting a raised eyebrow. “It’s not!” he said again, his eyes pinning her in place. Maybe it was not such a good thing that she couldn’t understand his subvocals, after all. “It’s rage, mixed with a bit of relief, as well, because I’ve helped disable enough slaving rings while with the military to know what they’d do with a young woman like you,” he explained, making her widen her eyes and shudder.

“I've never…” she stopped herself and shook her head with a rueful smile. “I was going to say I never thought of what would’ve happened to me, but it’s not really true,” They remained in silence for a moment and then her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry I flipped out on you, I just…”

“I understand,” he interrupted her, softly and took her hand in his, feeling the warmth seep through his gloves. “I wouldn’t want other people’s pity either,” He watched curiously as their fingers moved, trying a few different positions until they finally seemed to fit. Their palms against each other, her thumb, then his own, her index, his first talon, then two of her fingers, his other talon and her little finger. It was weird to have her hand around his when it was so smaller than his. It also shouldn’t have felt so comforting, and yet…

“The shrink at the orphanage is convinced that wanting to join the Alliance is just me being hell bent on the idea of revenge,” she mentioned, thoughtfully, drawing his attention from their tangled hands.

“And are you?” He asked, looking straight into her eyes. That was the only thing that really mattered as she didn’t need platitudes nor comforting words, he noticed.

“No,” she said, sternly and truthful, with her lower lips quivering slightly. “That’s not to say that I don’t resent batarians on some level, but, consciously, I know that most of the species isn’t responsible for what happened to my family.” He just watched her as she tried to explain and knew she really believed that. “If I were to hate a whole species based on any experience, I’d lose faith in humanity just as well,” she laughed bitterly. “I can’t even resent them without feeling like a hypocrite with Humans having also enslaved our own for a long time just because of different shades of skin colour…”

"I believe you," he said, reassuring. It made a more sincere smile tug at her lips, though some shadow still lingered in her eyes.

Garrus was considering those new revelations and wondered if that was the reason Chellick prompted him to peruse her background. _If so, how did he learnt of it?_ It had nothing to do with her name, though.

“Garrus,” he heard her call and felt her other hand land softly on his arm before he looked up, watching the concern behind her green eyes. Apparently he’d gone silent for longer than he thought. “Is there something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just stupid, actually…”

“Just spill it out,” said she, shrugging and watching him carefully.

He thought about telling her about his talk with Chellick, but knew that she wasn’t likely to start opening up to just anybody about her past and, if she didn’t know that the other turian knew, it would make things uncomfortable for her. “I was just wondering whether or not I could call you by your given name,” he shrugged and his mandibles flared, sheepishly. “It is a sign of proximity, of friendship, amongst humans, isn’t it?”

“Ah,” she seemed to deflate, chewing her bottom lip and avoiding looking at him. He immediately felt the loss of heat when she pulled her hands away from him. “I haven’t had anyone calling me by my first name for quite a while now,” She stood up and started to pace, unable to still herself. “I have been quite reticent about people calling me just ‘Shepard’, actually.”

“Why is that?” Garrus inquired, looking at her back as stared out the window.

Then she turned, a deep frown on her face as if she were thinking really hard over the matter. “It’s probably for the opposite reason you insist on people calling you by your first name.” That answer gave him pause. It wasn’t in any way what he was expecting to hear.

“Uh, because Shepard is _not_ your father?” He asked, thinking about what he repeated every time someone called him Vakarian outside of work.

“Not anymore, he’s not.” She shrugged in that way he’d learned to identify as uneasiness. “I’m the last Shepard, Garrus,” her voice wavered a bit and she blinked her eyes to dismiss the tears that threatened to fall. “Well, maybe not _the last_ Shepard in the whole Galaxy, because it’s not that uncommon a name, but…” Her voice roughened and she took a calming breath. “Both my parents were only children and my grandparents passed away before I was even born.”

They looked at each other for what seemed a long time, though it probably had been just a few seconds. A single tear finally rolled down over her cheeks, followed by another and another and another. Soon enough, there was no way to stop them as they came streaming down her face. “I’m all alone,” she choked painfully, hiding her face in her hands.

Before Garrus even knew what he was doing, he was on his feet, his arms around her, bringing her close to him and tucking her head beneath his jaw. His subvocals thrilled comfort as he lulled her back and forth. That close, her delicate scent overwhelmed him, a mix of soap and something sweeter, like the nokto velureko, growing wild back in Palaven’s uplands at the feet of the inhospitable mountains. He’d never noticed that before.

“You’re not alone,” he said, pushing away just enough to look her in the eyes. He cradled her face between his hands, wiping her tears with his thumbs and, without giving it much thought, he touched her forehead to his, making her gasp. “You’ll never be alone,” he assured her, making her lips twitch with a ghost of a smile.

She pressed her brow against his and blinked several times, dispelling whatever tears remained. “I don’t remember when was the last time I cried like this,” said she, through a ragged voice. She stepped back, taking a deep breath, her face taking a hue of pink in embarrassment. “This is one of the reasons I don’t talk about my family.”

“It seems like I’m a terrible date, huh,” he said, making her tilt her head to the side, watching him attentively. “If we go out, you’re jumped by an idiotic barefaced bastard,” Garrus flickered his mandibles, trying for a jesting expression. “If we stay in, you start to leak.” At that, she laughed – that brief kind of laugh that catches one by surprise when one less expects it. “Are you sure you want to keep doing this?”

Instead of answering, she grinned and went back to the couch, taking the puzzle box from the table. “You know, I never worked on one with three thousand pieces, before,” she said, glancing at him sideways as he approached. “This is a big puzzle and it’ll take a while for us to finish it.”

Garrus slacked his mandibles in a self-satisfied smirk and shrugged, sitting beside her. “Then I guess you’ll have to spend a lot of time here.”

“I guess I will,” she beamed at him, her eyes gleaming clear.

“So,” he drawled, leaning forward and propping his arms on his knees. “How does this thing work exactly?”

“Here, let me show you.” She opened the box, dropped its contents on the centre table in front of them and started turning the pieces face up. “First, we need to find the corners; see, like this one,” she showed him an oddly shaped piece with three indentations, that he supposed interlocked on other pieces, and one flat side. “We work from the outside in, putting the borders together first, then we separate the pieces by colour and… oh-oh!” she spluttered, looking at him with a funny face.

“What?” he asked, noticing the gleam of mischief in her eyes.

“This will be a terrible image to put together, with all that black from the endless space,” her face writhed and she puffed her cheeks in an incredibly cute way.

“We can do it!” He assured her, resting his hand over hers for a second, and they nodded to each other, before starting to sort the pieces in silence for a few minutes.

“By the way,” said she with a gentle smile, startling him. “I wouldn’t mind if you were to call me Jane.”

“You sure?” He gulped as his heart accelerated a notch. He wouldn’t press the issue, once he understood her reasons to grip with both hands to her family name; it was the last link she had with them.

She nodded, shyly, as a little frown showed up on her face. “I never had any friends calling me Jane before, I think I’d actually like that.”

“How come?” Garrus looked at her, curiosity in his voice.

“Everybody back home used to call me _Willie_ ,” she said and quickly added an explanation. “It’s a nickname for Willow, my second name,” she said with a wan smile.

“So your name is Jane Willow Shepard?” he asked, seeing her nod.

“Mom wanted my name to be Jane, dad wanted Willow, they ended up agreeing in naming me with both,” she sighed and shook her head with a wistful look. “But as I spent most of my time growing up with dad, I got used to being just Willow,” a small laugh escaped her, but it wasn’t exactly a happy sound. Sounded actually quite resigned. “I don’t think I can be Willow Shepard ever again, she is gone. She died along with her family in Mindoir,” she finally looked up and stared at him. He was mesmerized. It was as if he could see something shifting inside of her. “But I won’t be responsible for killing Jane Shepard as well, so,” she managed a weak smile, but it quickly faltered. “As I said, it’s okay if you want to call me Jane, as long as we’re alone, that is…”

“Thank you for your trust, Jane,” he said and she nodded, turning back to the puzzle pieces on the table. He sighed, his shoulders sagging and took notice of how things became serious and charged. They needed to lighten up a bit. “Are you hungry?”

She considered his question for a second before answering. “Famished.”

“Good. Let us order something to eat, then,” he opened his omni-tool and nudged her softly. “And this time you can have real human food.” He decided to try something and tried wiggling his brow plates as he saw some humans do while playing around with each other.

It seemed to work as she laughed and shook her head. “You’re a real piece of work, Garrus,” said she, resting her hand over his right mandible. He leaned in in her touch for a moment; a smile of understanding passed between them, and then she recoiled her hand. “What’s to eat?”

 


	6. Friends will be friends

_Garrus keeps struggling with his new role, but he’s learning._

Garrus' concerns about being incessantly teased were put on hold as he and Chellick were summoned to the Executor's office first thing in the morning. “You have any idea what it’s about?” He inquired during the long elevator ride to the Presidium.

“None, whatsoever.” Chellick answered, gravely. “The only reason I can think of for Executor Pollux to call us would be a big screw up,” he groaned, clasping his mandibles tight to his face. “And you’d think I’d remember if I had screwed up somehow…”

Garrus’ subvocals rumbled in agreement and they made the rest of the way in silence. As they exited the elevator near the Embassies, Garrus blinked a few times adjusting his vision as the eternal night of the Wards was replaced by the artificial daylight of the Presidium. His first posting in C-Sec was at the Presidium before he was transferred to work with Chellick, the single most boring month of his life – even if it allowed him daily meetings with his father at lunchtime.

_Or maybe it’d been_ because _of it;_   _I’m not really sure_.

They completely bypassed the asari receptionist at the front desk and turned left, climbing the stairs towards the Executor’s office, waiting while the security lock on the door checked their clearance to be there.

“All this technology, and they can’t make a faster security check,” Chellick mumbled, gritting his teeth.

He was trying not to show it, but Garrus was certain that Chellick was pretty nervous about the sudden summons.

“Or faster elevators,” Garrus added, making his partner chuckle and shake his head just as the door finally opened.

They looked at each other and nodded once in silent agreement before entering the new corridor; they’d have each other’s backs, no matter what. When they reached the diplomat’s room, they turned left once more and stopped in front of the Executor’s office, buzzing the doorbell.

When the doors opened and Executor Pollux, a brown plated turian with intricate purplish markings which placed him as being from Gothis, a colony which had gained a lot of respect fighting the Krogan at the Battle of Canrun, waved them in while returning to his vid-conference.

“Yes, I am aware that it’s the Hanar’s prerogative, Ambassador, but the Drell are, as your client race, your own responsibility once they don’t have an Embassy on the Citadel, and can’t be exempt from the rules any more than yourself,” he explained in a steady voice, despite the annoyance seeping from his subvocals. “Yes, Ambassador, I understand. Of course, you may appeal to the Council,” he assured and was silent for a moment, listening to what was being said on the other side. “I’ll be waiting for the Council’s resolution, then. I wish you success on your appeal, Ambassador.”

When the Executor disconnected, he took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead before looking up.

“I’m glad you came so promptly,” He began as he stood up and walked around the table to greet the younger officers. Pollux briefly clasped Chellick’s upper-arm and then Garrus’, before taking his seat once again. After the customary formal greeting, though, the Executor went right to business. “Chellick, your report over the Shalta Ward Red Sand dealers’ case was very thorough and got the attention of some of our senior investigators,” the Executor started.

Garrus felt his throat go dry at the same time as Chellick went rigid.

_Oh, damn! Did they find out that Chellick threw the bait that cemented the whole case?_  Garrus wondered, his mind playing the worst case scenarios…

“It was an impressive job and I congratulate you! It shows how much you’ve improved since you joined the force,” the older turian added, apparently reading their reactions as the kind of nervousness related to the fear of having performed poorly.

“Thank you, sir!” Chellick said after a second, relaxing his mandibles in relief.

Garrus let go of the breath he’d been holding.

“It was that attention to detail you demonstrated in your report that commended you to help us with a High Priority case we have ongoing,” Pollux said and then looked toward Garrus with his mandibles pulled taut against his face. “But before we can go any further, I need to ask: as Vakarian’s senior officer, do you believe he’d be able to keep up with you? Or would you rather we appoint you another partner for such an important investigation?”

Chellick straightened his back and Garrus’ head snapped in his partner’s direction. He knew it was a fair question; it was also a common issue in the turian meritocracy: a turian is selected for a task because of his specific skill set. The only difference between what happened in the military and  _this_  was that, in the former, things were usually decided behind closed doors between the CO, the XO and OP leader before the team was notified. Garrus couldn’t help feeling suddenly vulnerable being put on the spot like that.

Chellick, meanwhile, was considering the question carefully because if he deemed Garrus up to the task and was proven wrong it would be bad for both of them.

The longer it took for him to pass judgment, though, the more wound up Garrus felt.

“Permission to speak freely, sir,” Chellick requested, staring the Executor straight in the eyes. Pollux nodded and Chellick assumed a parade rest posture before speaking again. “Despite only knowing Vakarian for a month and being aware of his lack of experience within C-Sec, I have observed him to be an intelligent, honest and keen minded professional and I can assure you, sir, that, if attention to detail and the ability to see patterns no one else has is what you require for this case, then Garrus Vakarian is more than up to the task.”

“Very well, then.” The Executor opened his omni-tool interface and typed  something, just a heartbeat later, both Garrus and Chellick’s omni-tools chimed with an incoming message. “Go to that address and report to Detective Pallin for duty; he’ll fill you in on the investigation.”

“Yes, sir!” Both officers answered at once.

“You’re dismissed,” he declared and the two officers turned on their heels, heading to the door.

“Not a word,” Chellick muttered, walking past Garrus once the door to the Executor’s office closed. “Unless you wanna make me regret it,” his sub-vocals were thrumming with embarrassment and just a little teasing note.

Garrus chuckled, following his partner out of the glittering building in silence. “You have any idea what kind of case this might be?”

“If it’s Pallin, then it’s serious,” Chellick said, turning right after leaving the Embassies building and heading towards the Presidium Commons. “His cases are mostly from the Homicide or from the Heinous Crimes Division,” he explained, worried.

“The address the Executor forwarded us is nearby…” Garrus stated, thoughtfully. “Does something like that even happen on the Presidium?”

“Not usually, that must be why this was put under the High Priority banner,” he grumbled and, not for the first time, Garrus thought about the political implications of working in C-Sec.

“You’re probably right,” Garrus replied, thoughtfully.

Overall, he didn’t consider himself to be a very political person.

_There is right and there is wrong and there’s not much room between these two things to half measures_.

That’s the main reason for his struggles over the Citadel’s grey-lane for the last few months, but he’d like to think that he’s learning how to deal with the way things actually work. The Wards were festering with crime, and they had little freedom to deal with it, but whenever something happened at the Presidium, they were suddenly allowed to step on people’s toes.

_There are claws, grasps and grips, I guess_.

They made the rest of the way in silence, and Garrus felt a known knot of tension settle in his throat. The same kind of tension that precedes a ground mission. He missed that feeling, the eagerness, what only reminded him that he was not yet used to his new life.

_I’ll get there,_  he thought.

And for the first time ever since joining C-Sec, Garrus thought he could actually believe in it.

 

* * *

 

_Garrus have never seen a scenario that could be described as_ the definition of death _before._

Garrus was having a hard time concentrating on what Pallin was saying. During his two years in the military, he’d seen a few gruesome things while disabling mercs and slavers bases, but nothing ever came even near the mess inside the small room he found himself in right now.

Over the bed, near the wall across from the entryway, rested a mangled body, with its’ insides out and the head completely crushed. The green splatters all around the room immediately helped identify the victim as a salarian without the need of a closer inspection.

_Praised be the Spirits for the little mercies_.

Other than the bed and a desk with an upturned chair, the room was empty, and still there was blood all over, seemingly covering every available surface. Some splatters seemed to indicate that the victim had been repeatedly thrown against the walls with massive force.

It wasn't the sight that made it difficult to concentrate, though (oh, no; the sight was easy enough to avoid), but the smell... It was ghastly. It clung to his mouth and his throat like fingers and constricted his larynx: an awful mix of a nauseatingly semi-musky sweat scent that lingered in the chamber, overcoming even the stale ammoniac and stomach-churning  _past-the-point-of-decay_  raw meat stench. It made even breathing difficult.

Upon entering the room, Garrus actually heaved, nearly throwing up his breakfast in front of everybody.

_What a great kick to a career that would be,_ he thought, _throwing up at the crime scene of my first time working a Grand case._

"It's the fourth victim we found in seven months and the intervals between the killings is getting smaller,” Pallin said, his mandibles pulled tight against his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

“Has the victim been identified, yet?” Chellick asked, his voice was strangely plain.

Garrus felt somewhat reassured that he was not the only one feeling the constricting effects of the room’s reek.

Pallin narrowed his eyes slightly, glancing from Garrus to Chellick with a knowing look on his face and a satisfied gleam in his eyes.

“We identified the victim as a salarian technician from the Embassies. According to his office logs he hasn’t showed up at work for two days.” Pallin said, pointing towards the door and urging them to leave the room.

When Garrus could breathe some fresh air again, he felt like he’d just passed some kind of initiation.

In the room next door, where C-Sec had set up a temporary operation centre, Pallin gave them both datapads with all the information retrieved from the crime scene till that moment and the three of them sat down around a desk. The two young officers had a moment to examine the contents on it.

“I’m certain that you’ve both had experience with corpses before,” Pallin said after a couple minutes, making Garrus blink a couple times missing the relevance of that. “What can you tell about what was in there?”

Garrus and Chellick looked at each other with thoughtful glances for a second, before turning back to the Detective.

“The stench in the room doesn’t make any sense,” Chellick mentioned, seeing Pallin nod and thrum briefly that he’d go on. “You said that he’s not showed up at work for two days. Even with all the damage the body took, assuming that he’s been missing for the last 40 hours, considering the room temperature and the fact that his internal organs had disappeared,” he continued, indicating the data from the pad. “There hasn’t been time yet to the degree of decay that would make that smell plausible.”

Garrus felt his mandibles flick uneasy. He hadn’t thought of that. He looked back to the datapad and took a closer look at the coroner’s report.

 

_The temperature of the room at the moment the body was discovered was extremely low, what makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact time of death._

_The body had been coated in a foreign liquid substance. So far the analysis has identified 18 different biological markers from multiple species, as follows:_

_1)           Human - Testosterone, Adrenocorticotrophine,_   _Oxytocin._

_2)           Turian - Inostenon, Timocotron, Maskloteron, Gravedecon, Estresigocon._

_3)           Salarian - Sodefrin, Silafrin, Timeodafrin, Aestuafrenin._

_4)           Volus - Plethodous, Yarous, Strakhous._

_5)           Asari - Oinazea, Beldurrari, Amorrua._

_The most logical explanation is that the foreign substance is of artificial making._

_There are also several different DNA traces, again from various species and with no relevant matches within C-Sec database._

“I’m not sure about the biological markers of the other species, the terms aren’t familiar to me,” Garrus mentioned, contracting his browplates and narrowing his eyes. “But those are turian pheromones that were found coating the body.”

“They’re all pheromones, yes.” Said Pallin, with a satisfied thrill at the raised topic. “This same coating liquid has been found on all four victims.

“That’s how we know the crimes are connected, then…” Chellick pointed out, thoughtful.

“But why would someone fabricate a cross-species pheromone based… extract?” Garrus wondered, shaking his head in confusion.

“We’re pretty sure the murderer is inserting this mixture of genetic information on the crime scenes to cover up his presence.” Pallin shook his head, exasperation in his voice. “All four crime scenes have given us an overwhelming amount of genetic traces, they’re mostly fragments of protein, though, and lead us only as far as the species, but not to individuals.”

“Sir, you said  _mostly_   _fragments of protein_ ,” Chellick raised the point. “Does that mean we have a few genetic traces unbroken to allow identification?”

“The few traces we were able recover unbroken have yet to do us any good as we aren’t able to cross-reference to anyone on our database.”

The three of them remained in silence for a moment. Chellick went back to reading the datapad in his hands, but Garrus just stared at a point over Pallin’s head. He felt a stirring pressure in his stomach and couldn’t control his mandibles’ quiver. Something about Pallin’s words got his heart racing. There was something about the Citadel’s database; he’s seen it not long ago. What was it? And why did he feel like that was so important?

Garrus wondered if that was what Shepard referred to as  _‘gut feeling’_  and shook his head, trying to ignore that sudden sensation. He shouldn’t let himself be taken by feelings as a case couldn’t be based on hunches.

Then the reason for his unrest came to mind and he gasped, attracting a funny look from Chellick and Pallin.

“Isn’t the Citadel’s Genetic database updated every five years to avoid the surplus of dead files on the system?” asked Garrus.

Pallin stared at him in contemplative silence for a few heartbeats. “If the genetic codes we have on that mixture belonged to anyone who died before the last update it won’t show up on our current system with a normal search…” Pallin’s mandibles flared and he thrummed approvingly of Garrus’ thinking. “Very well, Officers Chellick and Vakarian, I have a task for the two of you…” The senior detective declared, making them both get to their feet. “You’ll be in charge of sweeping the Citadel database backups for any matches with the information we have.”

“Yes, Sir!” They both said, saluting.

Garrus was particularly eager for having such a straightforward goal.

“You can go back to C-Sec Headquarters, now. I’ll request that Executor Pollux gives the two of you the clearance necessary to access the Genetic data within the Citadel Archives. You’ll receive the notification via your omni-tool.”

With their new orders, they left the Apartments on the Commons heading back to HQ with the determination to help catch the monster responsible for the carnage they’ve seen in that room.

 

* * *

 

_Shepard understands the old saying about friends being the family you choose._

Shepard was focused on her Xenolinguistics homework when she was startled by a hand suddenly touching her shoulder followed by a very energetic greeting. “Hey, Shepard!”

“Dammit, Wong!” Exclaimed Shepard, dropping her datapad on the floor and getting a reproving look from the tutor working with the younger kids at the other table. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Porter,” she said, lightly elbowing her friend and pointing to the older woman.

“My fault, Mrs. Porter!” Emily said with an unapologetic grin, making the redheaded sigh. She turned back to Shepard and rested her head on a hand. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you usually at the C-Sec Academy kicking some butt at this hour?”

“Usually, yes,” Shepard said. “But the hand-to-hand instructor is busy with some investigation this week, and the class today was cancelled.”

“I see,” Emily narrowed her eyes looking at Shepard. “And you’re using this newfound free time to study?” She asked, shaking her head. “Damn, Shepard, you’re a real girl-scout, aren’t you?”

“Isn’t the real question: Why _aren’t_  you studying _?_ ” Shepard inquired, making the little Asian girl shrug nonchalantly.

“Anyway,” Wong bluntly changed the subject. “Mrs. Keller and Dr. Yoshida were looking for you…”

“Yes, I know.” Shepard looked back at her essay. “They sent me a message earlier and I’m just finishing this to go and see what they want…”

“After you find out, will you tell me what you talked about?” Emily asked eagerly and Shepard chuckled softly.

“As if you didn’t know everything that happens in this place already…” Shepard smirked without taking her eyes out of the datapad she was writing on. “I still don’t understand why you need to know everything that’s going on…”

“Well, old habits die hard, I guess…” Wong heaved a sigh. “When you’re a Duct Rat information may be the difference between life and death…” She went on as if it didn’t matter.

Except Shepard knew Emily didn’t often babbled about her time living as a homeless kid on the Citadel.  _To each their ghost, I guess._

Emily was eight years old when her mother decided to sell all their hard earned possessions in Wuhan, China, to pay for three tickets out of Earth. Mrs. Wong, then, gathered her two kids and joined the second wave of settlers heading to Elysium, but the family plans went south when the mother got sick on their way to the colony and the Captain dropped the three of them on a medical vessel that was heading to the Citadel – he couldn’t risk whatever the disease was to spread. Having no money to pay for the medical bills, though, they were quickly set aside by the System and, after Mrs. Wong passed away, Emily’s older brother, Derek, took care of her as they joined the rapidly increasing group of homeless humans living in the darkest, dirtiest corners of the Station. That was seven years ago.

According to what Emily had told her, they kept themselves mostly out of trouble, recurring to petty theft only when really necessary. Derek usually would get freelance jobs at the docks, providing cheap labour by helping unload shipments.

They were caught shoplifting half a dozen dehydrated protein bars a year and a half ago. She was a minor, but her brother was nineteen, so the Alliance made a deal with C-Sec in their behalf. If he joined the Alliance, the charges would be dropped and his sister would be well cared for on the Orphanage.

After living under the radar of C-Sec for such a long time it wasn’t really that surprising that Emily had the habit of keeping her nose in everyone else’s business and being invisible unless she wanted to be seen.

“Why don’t you just do what you usually do to eavesdrop on other people’s conversation, then…” Shepard asked raising her eyebrow.

Looking around, Emily leaned toward Shepard. “There’s no Keeper tunnel near Mrs. Keller office and I’m too big to move around on the air vents…” she whispered, making Shepard chuckle. It wasn’t really a secret how the Duct Rats moved undetected around the Citadel despite you never actually hearing one of them talking about it.

“What about this, then,” Shepard straightened herself in her chair and looked into Emily’s chestnut eyes with a smirk. “You can come with me and hear it all by yourself. I don’t mind…”

“It’s a deal!” Emily beamed at her, leaning on the desk with her head propped on her hands.

“I’ll still be working on this assignment for a while, though…” Shepard said, pointing to her datapad. “Why don’t you take this opportunity and do your homework? Aren’t you kind of failing on Mathematics?”

Emily pouted, crossing her arms. She was usually so straightforward that sometimes was easy to forget how young she actually was. “You no fun...”

“Yeah, yeah…” Shepard waved her hand dismissively. “I’m a boring, proper girl-scout…” Shepard paused for a second, peaking at the dark-haired girl beside her. “It doesn’t change the fact that you still should do your homework…”

“Pfft… Fine!” Emily got up. “I’ll go and get my material…” She said, leaving the room with heavy steps.

While watching the younger girl walk away, Shepard started wondering if that was what having a sibling would feel like; and, if it was, when did she start considering Emily Wong anything close to family?

 


	7. I Run From My Past

 

 

 _Some wounds, Shepard thinks, are better left untouched_.

            After finishing her homework and making sure Emily completed hers, Shepard headed to the office Mrs. Keller usually shared with Dr. Yoshida, the psychologist, with the younger girl following her really closely.

“I don’t know why you’re so excited about this; it might be nothing at all…” Shepard told the dark-haired girl, who shrugged in response.

“People don’t usually allow me to participate of their meetings…” was the enthusiastic response.

“Maybe they would if you didn’t just eavesdrop anyway…” the redhead suggested, watching Wong’s reaction.

“I only eavesdrop because nobody wants to tell me anything…” Emily stubbornly countered.

Shepard shook her head, realizing that debating this would get them nowhere. “You are known for ignoring personal boundaries after all,” She chastised, with no real bite to it, “and it’s not exactly fair since even you have some subjects you don’t like to talk about.”

“Hey! I know when to let things drop,” Emily defended, with an with an air of wounded pride. “For example, I didn’t bug you about how your date went…”

“That’s true, and I can’t say how relieved I am that you dropped the matter,” Shepard replied, gratitude quite obvious in her voice.

"So, you admit it was a date..." Emily said coyly, watching Shepard stare at her with narrowed eyes. "Not another word. I promise!" She added, quickly, but completely unapologetic.

When they got to the director’s office, Shepard hesitated for a heartbeat. That all too familiar pressure at the base of her stomach, which generally preceded something going wrong, holding her in place. Beside her, Emily twitched anxiously. With a deep breath, she hit the door chime and waited for it to open.

The office was a longish kind of room, a desk against each lateral wall with an armchair placed in front of each; there was a round table with a couple chairs by the window and a metal cabinet between two doors to the left: one to the washroom, the other to the small room where the doctor held the regular therapy sessions with the orphanage interns. The ever-present scent of cinnamon filled the air because Dr. Yoshida liked to light incense to cleanse the air once a day.

“Ah, Shepard!” Dr. Yoshida, a chubby grizzled woman, called out. “We were hoping you’d show up earlier.”

“I’m sorry,” Shepard said, crossing the room, “I was in the middle of my Xenolinguistics essay when I got your message…”

“Have you finished your studies, then?” Mrs. Keller, a tall, lanky blonde, asked in her unmistakably nasal voice, as she emerged from the toilet.

For a moment Shepard considered lying so that she’d have a way out if the talk went some place she didn’t like it, but opted not to – even though she was sure Emily would back her up in the bat of an eye had she decided otherwise. “Yes, Ma’am, I did.”

“Very good!” Mrs. Keller said, looking toward Emily, who was still glued to Shepard, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. “Would you excuse us please, dear?”

“But…” Emily turned to Shepard, with wide eyes.

“No _buts_ , Miss Wong,” Mrs. Keller replied with a non-nonsense stare. “This is a private matter and has nothing to do with you.”

“It’s alright,” Shepard interrupted, “I told her she could stay. I don’t mind.”

The older women exchanged a surprised glance. “Are you sure?”

Shepard supposed that was a fair reaction. For a long, long time she had worked quite hard to not let anyone get too close. Most of the girls at the Orphanage were still afraid of her and most of the boys paid her no attention at all. She probably wouldn’t be friends with Emily either if the other girl wasn’t so damned stubborn.

“I would just tell her what we talked about afterward anyway,” Shepard shrugged, as if it wasn’t that big of a deal. From the corner of her eyes, Shepard saw Emily giving a smug grin.

“If you’re certain…” Dr. Yoshida said cautiously; as if giving Shepard one more chance to change her mind. She directed Emily to sit down in the armchair by her desk and asked Shepard to join her at the table by the window.

“You start. I’ll see if he’s available…” said Keller, sitting at her desk and activating her omni-tool. For a second, Shepard wondered who they were talking about.

“How have you been?” The doctor asked, with a warmth in her eyes that usually made Shepard feel uncomfortable.

Shepard shrugged and self-consciously tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m fine. Haven’t been in any kind of trouble lately”, she answered, concealing a little smirk at the knowledge that it wasn’t exactly true.

“I have to admit, I had no idea you and Emily were friends…” the doctor said, seemingly satisfied. “Though, I should’ve imagined my two most troublesome patients would eventually bond.”

At that, Mrs. Keller, who had been typing on her omni-tool, stood up from her desk and made her way to them. “Alright, let me just set this up.”

Without turning the device off, she synced it to the Holo-pad on the table and, soon enough, two figures were staring at Shepard: the first one was a strong-looking woman, with short black hair and such a presence that, even though her avatar on the table had about thirty centimetres, her no-nonsense expression made Shepard straighten up on the chair – if she had to guess, she’d say the woman was from the military. The other one was a male turian, and not just any male turian, but the C-Sec Executor.

“Shepard, let me introduce you to Lieutenant Jill Dah, from Alliance PR, she’s responsible for overseeing the Systems Alliance reputation within the Citadel,” the doctor began, putting Shepard on her guard. She couldn’t begin to imagine what this was all about and it made her antsy and terribly uncomfortable. “And this is Executor Pollux, from C-Sec.”

“Now that the introductions are out of the way, we can get to business,” the Lieutenant began with such directness that Shepard wondered how a person with apparently no patience had made it into the Public Relations department of the Alliance. “Miss Shepard, tell me: how do feel about turians?”

Shepard’s eyes widened as her heart started racing in her chest. The knot in her gut becoming more and more strained. _Was this some kind of trick question? Could they know about her and Garrus?_ She wondered. She looked at the other people in the room, both physically and virtually, trying to decide what to do. The silence stretched for what seemed like too long, but she still tried to buy some time and test the waters by asking: “What do you mean?”

“Just answer the question, dear,” said Mrs. Keller, patiently. “Be honest.”

It still didn’t make it any easier for her to come up with an answer. What could she say? She didn’t really think anything about Turians, just as she didn’t think anything about Humans. They were _people_. They had flaws and virtues. She’d known some nice individuals, just as she’d known some nasty ones, but wasn’t that a reality about other species as well?

Lieutenant Dah sighed, exasperated and was going to say something, but the Executor was faster. “Let’s change the question: what do you think of the… _The First Contact War_ , as you call it?”

 _Well_ , that _was a lot easier to answer_ , thought Shepard.

“I-I think it was a mistake.” She started, looking at the Alliance officer with suspicion; she clutched her pant legs in order to avoid crossing her arms in a defensive movement. “I mean, even though their panic at seeing us meddling with the Relay is understandable if you think of what happened when the Salarians opened the Rachni Relay, the turians were the most experienced in dealing with other races, so they could probably have dealt with it better.”

As she spoke of it, she gained confidence. That was something she was very good at: looking at History with an objective eye and some detachment. _‘True History allows no Partiality_ ’ her father used to say.

“On that note, we should have thought better of the consequences of messing around with the Relays. We didn’t have much information to go by and were dealing with a technology we knew almost nothing about. What if we had unleashed something far worse than the Rachni on the Galaxy?” She wondered, shaking her head thoughtfully. “The truth is that the blame falls on both parts, but that’s something I can only say in hindsight and with an incomplete picture of the situation. I have no idea about how close from activating the Relay our technicians were; if the Turians thought they didn’t have the time to approach us following First Contact procedures or if they were just _trigger happy_ as I often hear some people say… I just don’t know. I wasn’t there. I have no way of knowing what _really_ happened and, honestly, the continuing fight over who’s to blame only leads to people making the same mistakes over and over again.”

“I wish more people were as discerning,” the Executor, interjected, apparently satisfied. “Unfortunately, though, too many people are too busy trying to prove the other side was in the wrong instead of learning from History. I know a lot of people died on both sides. I lost a lot of friends from basic during the fights, but that is not reason enough to perpetuate the fighting with the new generation, who had nothing to do with the conflict.” He then sighed and looked slightly down. “I apologize, Dah. I know you were there during the reclaiming of Shanxi.”

“Don’t worry, Pollux. Even though I can’t be that detached from the way the fighting occurred, I agree with you. The perpetuation of the infighting is a setback, despite what the purists think. Humanity can’t become a part of the Galaxy unless we learn to coexist.” She scoffed, but then turned to Shepard. “It gives me hope that some of the younger generation have a mind of their own.”

“Agreed,” the Executor responded, with a serious note to his voice. “Now, to the reason we are here...”

“Yes, well, Miss Shepard, you must be aware that Armistice Day is around the corner,” the Lieutenant said, and then continued without waiting for an answer. “Every year a group of humans called Terra Firma organize a protest against other species here in the Citadel. Every year the protests nearly get out of hand and give C-Sec a headache, the Alliance a nightmare in terms of negative feedback, and humanity a terrible reputation. Last year, things actually escalated to vandalism and violence in one of the Wards. Thankfully, no one ended up injured, but the Council still pressed our Embassy to come up with an answer to the this year’s protest. And, even though they have no affiliation with the Alliance, the Embassy charged us with finding a solution.” She explained, clearly exasperated.

Shepard supposed she could understand. Her own experiences with the Embassy and Terra Firma were blemished after the whole Harkin situation.

“The solution we found was to hold an event to highlight the similarities between the species instead of the differences and we’re going to count with the help of C-Sec.”

“It’s on C-Sec’s best interests to avoid any incidents. Plus, C-Sec is the largest multi-species organization in Citadel Space with an increasing number of human members in our ranks,” the Executor added. “After some deliberation, we decided to exploit a somewhat _martial_ point of view of our cultures…” he explained, and something in his phrasing made Shepard lose her breath. “The Citadel Self-Defence Classes were supposed to have a major role in the whole affair, but with our instructors otherwise engaged; this is no longer possible…”

“Unless you help us…” Pointed out the woman.

“I don’t see how I could possibly be of any help,” Shepard replied, unsure. What was it that they were asking of her? And why did feel like she wouldn’t like it?

“Your name came to our attention from the CSDC reports,” Dah replied. “The three instructors in charge of the program have nothing but good things to say about you. They say you’re dedicated and open-minded, and quite skilled at both turian hand-to-hand and asari arketa, but, even more important than that: you’re also a certified black-belt _karateka_ ,” the Lieutenant pressed on.

She clenched her fists; her back went rigid even as her arms quivered. Very suddenly, her whole body went cold and she must have gotten really pale because in the following second Dr. Yoshida was kneeling beside her and asking her to take a deep breath. “It’s okay, dear. Just be calm, please.”

Shepard closed her eyes for a second, disappointed with her own lack of control. She thought herself stronger. She didn’t imagine her family, Mindoir, and her past to still have such a great pull over her, even though she still refuses to talk about it – her brief discussion of the subject with Garrus was an olive branch, but she still had a long way to run before being able to say that it was behind her.

“It’s okay. I’m fine,” she told the doctor, refusing to look straight into her eyes. She stared at the two projections over the table, instead. The Lieutenant had a deep frown, but mentioned nothing. She couldn’t just deny herself from helping, so she would have to find a middle ground. “How does that help you exactly?”

“As a black-belt, you can take over training in the absence of a master, can’t you?”

“Normally I would say _yes_ , but it would require that a proper karate class be established; and I’m only a _Shodan_ , which is a black-belt first class. It hardly makes me a master,” Shepard explained. She wondered if the Lieutenant knew anything about the traditional fight.

“You are still allowed to make demonstrations and teach any interested party the first _kata_ , at least.”

_Damn! Obviously she knows enough of the technicalities._

“It’s true, Ma’am, but it’s been at least two years since my last contact with karate. I’m afraid I’m a little rusty.”

“It’d be a good opportunity for you to retake training, then, wouldn’t it?” Dah suggested, firmly.

At this point it had to be quite obvious that she was trying to find her way out of the commitment.

“You’re not forced to help us,” the Executor interrupted, making her flinch. “Why don’t you take some time to think it through? We can grant you three days. If you decide to help, let us know and we’ll organize everything.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help; she just wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t choke and run, ruining the demonstration.

“I’ll help if I’m able!” She said, trying to breach the topic from another perspective. “It’s just that… Karate isn’t just a series of random movements. It’s about the cohesion of body, mind and soul. I’m not sure I can get to that kind of unity in such a short notice.”

“I see,” said Pollux; contemplation in his subvocals – and Shepard was surprised at being able to spot that. “I really hope you can help us out, then. It’d be a shame to let such a discipline inducing tradition to go unnoticed by the Council races. Especially those who think of humans as unruly…”

“Then, I suppose there’s nothing else to be done here,” said Dah, clearly unsatisfied by the outcome of their conversation. “We explained our piece, now it’s up to you, Miss Shepard. I hope you come around; the _Alliance_ would be very grateful if you did.” She made a point of emphasizing the last part.

Shepard wondered if she was being paranoid or if it actually had something of a threat under those words, considering that she was intent on enlisting.

After the farewells were given and the connection was cut, Shepard remained still, staring at the transmitter on the table for a few heartbeats. She used to love going to the _dojo_ and going over the _katas_ until exhaustion hit. It used to give her a sense of purpose and peace and relaxation, but now the mere thought of practicing made her tense and in conflict with herself as she went through those feelings of loss all over again.

Still, she wished she could help further human-turian relations and her guilt was on the way. It’s not like she _promised_ to never use karate again. She only made a decision, but it wasn’t like she could abandon the lessons she acquired over a decade of her life. It was ingrained in her posturing, in her discipline, in the way she didn’t slouch around like other teens her age. Chellick even said that she held herself in a particular way that made her movements more fluid and effective than most humans and she knew it was due to her years of training the Ancient Martial Art.

A hand rested on her shoulder and she looked up, seeing Dr. Yoshida beside her, staring at her with kind eyes. “I don’t really need to tell you this anymore, but you know where to find me if you want to talk. You don’t have to-”

“… Deal with it alone. I know.” Shepard finished the sentence, nodding with gratitude to the doctor.

On the other side of the table, Mrs. Keller cleared her throat (which was a known indication among the children that she’d broach an unpleasant topic) and Shepard prepared herself for it.

Before the director could say anything, Emily stood up, pushing her chair with a clatter and reminding Shepard of her presence. “Hey, Shep, can we go now? You promised you’d help me with my Math lesson after this was all done…”

For a fraction of a second, Shepard could swear that the other girl had a grin on her face, but just as it showed up, it was gone. “Uh, yeah. I’m sorry, Emily, just, uh…” She looked at the doctor and stood up, ending the conversation, even as she asked if there was anything else out of politeness.

“No, dear, go ahead! Only God knows how much help Emily needs at school…” said the doctor, playfully.

“Excuse me, then,” She approached Emily, who was fidgeting by the door, and looked over her shoulder to the elder women. “Have a good afternoon, Ma’am. Doctor!”

The girls walked through the corridors in silence till they had put enough distance between them and the office. Then Emily started giggling and Shepard couldn’t help but join her. “Really smooth. Nice timing…”

“Oh, I know! I’m awesome!”

“Just one thing…” Shepard looks at her with a frown. “ _Shep_? Really?”

“Well, once we’re such good friends, I’m allowed, ain’t I?”

Emily tried not to show it, but Shepard still was able to hear a flicker of hesitation in her voice. She didn’t know why this kid was so set in being her friend, but she was thankful for that. It was her own damn fault (what with her anger bursts during the first six months after the attack on Mindoir), but even if she didn’t want to admit it, her time in the orphanage had been quite lonely.

“Yes, you’re allowed!” Shepard smiled, and then turned mockingly serious. “Try not to call me that in public, though. Or people will start to think that I’m going soft.”

“And we wouldn’t want that,” Emily replied with a lopsided grin.

The smile didn’t remain on her face for long, though. She grew gradually more serious as they approached their dorm.

Once they entered the room and were certain to be alone, Emily sighed heavily and turned to Shepard with a determined expression. “Do you wanna talk about it? The karate stuff, I mean. I saw how much it bothered you; you were as pale as a ghost when they brought it up…”

“I’m sorry, Emily. I’m not ready to talk about it, yet…”

She liked Emily and wished she were strong enough to open up, but… Even without meaning to, Shepard could feel the invisible wall she erected around herself getting back in place. The only difference was that, looking in the younger girl’s eyes, she found such a deep understanding that it felt like the wall was starting to crack.

“So what are you gonna do about Armistice Day?”

 _What, indeed…_ She thought, sitting on her bed.

“Don’t know, yet,” she admitted thoughtfully. She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to help in every capacity, but needed time to convince herself that she could do it without breaking apart afterwards.

“I could be wrong, but,” Emily thoughtfully scrunched her nose and sat beside Shepard. “You don’t really have much choice in the matter, do you? Where the Alliance is concerned, I mean.”

“You caught that too? Damn!” Shepard heaved a sigh and hopelessly laid down. “I was hoping it was my imagination…”

They remained in silence for a bit. Each dealing with their own thoughts, but Emily was a person of action and didn’t like to handle the quiet for long.

“Well, once I’ve already done my homework, I’ll take a walk and see what else is going on around this place,” She stood up and looked at Shepard with a slight grin. “Why don’t you do the same? Shed some light on the matter? See your boyfriend, maybe?”

Shepard shook her head as Emily hastily walked out the door, waving goodbye. Truth be told, she’d like to talk to Garrus, see what he thinks about it all. It’d been barely a week, but she missed him. Missed his company and hearing his voice and their nightly chats over the Comm.

She stood there staring at the ceiling of her dorm for a few more heartbeats before sitting up. “Well, why not?” She asked herself, getting to her feet. _If he’s not there, I can at least work on the puzzle before heading back._

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank t0rqu3b0t and theherocomplex for their help and support.


End file.
